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Which countries in Latin America are best prepared to fight corruption? How are governments, media, civil society and the private sector fostering - or standing in the way of - a cleaner business environment?

To help answer these questions, AS/COA and the risk consulting firm Control Risks are launching the Capacity to Combat Corruption (CCC) Index, a new tool assessing Latin America's ability to uncover, punish and deter corruption.

Rather than measuring perceived levels of corruption, the CCC Index evaluates and ranks countries based on how effectively they are able to combat corruption. Countries with a higher score are deemed more likely to see corrupt actors prosecuted and punished.

The country with the highest overall score in the 2019 CCC Index is Chile (6.66 out of 10), meaning it is deemed the most likely country in the study for corruption to be uncovered, punished and deterred. Chile was followed by Brazil (6.14), a virtual tie between Colombia (5.36) and Argentina (5.33), Peru (5.17), Mexico (4.65), Guatemala (4.55) and, in a distant last place, Venezuela (1.71).

The CCC Index looks at 14 key variables, including the independence of judicial institutions, the strength of investigative journalism, and the level of resources available for combating white-collar crime. These variables are divided in three sub-categories: legal capacity; democracy and political institutions; and civil society, media and the private sector. Countries' overall scores are a weighted aggregate of these three sub-categories.

The index relies on extensive data and on a proprietary survey conducted among leading anti-corruption experts from Control Risks, academia, civil society, media and the private sector.

The inaugural edition of the CCC Index covers Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, which collectively represent almost 90 percent of Latin America and the Caribbean's GDP.

"An anti-corruption wave has been sweeping Latin America for the past five years, putting powerful figures in jail and shaping electoral outcomes. The CCC Index provides us a comparative tool to better understand this phenomenon and highlight why some countries have had greater success in facing the problem of systemic corruption," said Roberto Simon, Senior Director of Policy at AS/COA.

According to Geert Aalbers, Senior Partner at Control Risks, the CCC Index offers businesses a comprehensive understanding of the nuanced compliance challenges in Latin America. "Companies are interested in how well-equipped countries are to combat corruption, and how effectively they are doing so," said Aalbers. The CCC Index provides a perspective on how countries in Latin America are faring on this front and is designed to be read in combination with other key indices on corruption.

"Over time, greater levels of enforcement in the region will lead companies to investigate wrongdoing and invest more heavily in compliance measures, which will ultimately reinforce the creation of a more transparent business environment," added Aalbers.

The CCC Index will be updated annually, tracking countries' trajectories in the field of anti-corruption.

For the full results and methodology, download the 2019 CCC Index Report.

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Chile Beats Out Brazil in a New Anti-Corruption Ranking

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Which countries in Latin America are best prepared to fight corruption? How are governments, media, civil society and the private sector fostering - or standing in the way of - a cleaner business environment? To help answer these questions, AS/COA and the risk consulting firm Control Risks are launching the Capacity to Combat Corruption (CCC) Index, a new tool assessing Latin America's ability to uncover, punish and deter corruption.

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MADRID - A growing number of Spanish politicians and business leaders are ending their careers in an unexpected place: behind bars.

Almost 1,500 people in Spain faced trial for corruption between July 2015 and the end of 2016, according to official figures. Around 70 percent of them were found guilty.

Since the country's transition to democracy in the late 1970s, those sitting on the defendant's bench have included top business people, ministers, regional presidents, mayors and even Princess Cristina, the king's sister. In the past few months alone, the entrepreneur Iñaki Urdangarín (Cristina's husband and King Felipe VI's brother-in-law) and former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato were among those sentenced to prison.

Mariano Rajoy will soon become the first sitting prime minister to appear as a witness in a Spanish court when he gives evidence in a massive corruption case involving the alleged illegal financing of his Popular Party (PP).

"In Spain justice walks slowly, but it rarely stops," said Salvador Viada, a prosecutor at the Supreme Court.

For years, corruption has been ranked as the second biggest cause for concern after unemployment. The combination of a seemingly never-ending series of graft scandals and a devastating economic crisis has led many to question hitherto esteemed Spanish institutions and shaken up the political landscape. Yet even the harshest critics of the establishment praise the work of rank-and-file judges. The leader of the far-left party Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, recently hailed prosecutors and magistrates for "protecting the dignity" of the country.

"In Spain justice walks slowly, but it rarely stops" - Salvador Viada, a prosecutor at the Supreme Court

Putting Spain's elite in jail hasn't been easy. Insiders describe a daunting task in which they have to put up with scarce resources, overcome political and media pressure, deal with a judicial hierarchy chosen for its ideological proximity to politicians, and outmaneuver a government capable of hampering investigations.

"These sort of cases get going by means of heroism," said a judge who investigated one of the most important corruption scandals in the past decade.

In 2013, the Group of States Against Corruption - which was set up by the Council of Europe - said in a report about Spain: "While the independence and impartiality of individual judges and prosecutors have been broadly undisputed to date, much controversy surrounds the issue of the structural independence of the governing bodies of the judiciary and the prosecutorial service - the primary concern being the appearance that partisan interests could penetrate judicial decision-making processes."

The organization issued 11 recommendations to help Spain tackle corruption. Three years later, it concluded that none of the recommendations had been "implemented satisfactorily."

Water firm scandal

The latest graft scandal to have made the headlines is known as the " Lezo case."

In April, Ignacio González, the PP's president of the Madrid region until 2015, was arrested and detained as part of an investigation into a public water company. He's accused of profiting from investments made in Latin America through the state-owned firm that has an annual budget of €1 billion. González's brother and around a dozen former public officials and businessmen have also been detained.

Details of the investigation have been leaked to the press, including wiretapped communications that appear to show González trying to use his powerful position to evade justice.

José Antonio Martín Pallín, a former judge at the Supreme Court, said the tone of the leaked conversations was somewhere "between pornographic and Mafia-like."

In one conversation, from 2016 (after he left office), González spoke to former PP minister Eduardo Zaplana about appointing a new chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Manuel Moix, whom he describes as a "serious and good" man.

In published records of the conversation, González said he was thinking of calling Justice Minister Rafael Catalá to explain to him the importance of the issue. "The state machinery and the media" are key, González was recorded saying. "Either you have them under control or you're dead."

Moix was appointed as chief anti-corruption prosecutor six months after that conversation.

"I hope the troubles draw to a close soon," was the SMS that Catalá sent to González when the latter congratulated him on his appointment, according to a leak of the investigation.

Viada of the Supreme Court said the most worrying thing is not that the men talked about how to place friendly faces in key posts, but "that they achieved their goal."

The many years it's taken for justice to catch up with González isn't a surprise to people familiar with the judicial system.

He added that the Lezo case has shown that "politics wields a great deal of influence in the appointment of key posts" in the justice system.

The opposition in parliament last week accused Rajoy of interfering with the judiciary - during his first appearance in Congress since the Lezo case became a fixture in the news. "I believe the anti-corruption prosecutor is a professional with a broad and successful career ... who acts with full independence," the prime minister said.

Inner workings

In Spain, judges lead an investigation and prosecutors are meant to defend the rule of law. In practice, the prosecutor's office provides resources and manpower for investigations, can call into question the actions of judges and, with some exceptions, needs to bring formal charges for a case to make it to court.

The chief prosecutor is appointed by the government and his subordinates are expected to obey his orders. Judges obey no one but the law. However, the governing body of magistrates - the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (General Council of the Judiciary, or CGPJ) - is selected by members of parliament. The CGPJ then chooses the judicial hierarchy, including the magistrates at the Supreme Court.

"The [judicial] hierarchy is appointed for its ideological or political closeness" to politicians, said Viada.

"The system is badly designed and generates some concerns, to say the least," said Judge Jesús Villegas, who heads the legal association Plataforma Cívica por la Independencia Judicial (Civil Platform for Judicial Independence).

Villegas also argued that many comfy posts for judges depend on the arbitrary will of the government, meaning politicians have jobs to give to friendly judges.

"Imagine that you are the justice minister and I'm in my office, buried in mountains of paper, and you call me," Villegas said. "You tell me 'Jesús, you're great, why don't you go to the ministry or to an embassy to write legal reports ... you're going to earn as much as you do or more, you're going to leave the black hole you're in, you're going to have a chauffeur' ... it changes your life."

Viada knows all about attempted influence from his days as an anti-corruption prosecutor in the Audiencia Nacional, the most important nationwide court investigating corruption.

Once, he said, the chief prosecutor ordered him to stop investigating a politician. The problem was solved when Viada asked his boss to write the order down in a formal statement, which he refused to do. On another occasion, Viada said a state secretary (ranked just below a minister in government hierarchy) asked him to talk to a judge to convince him to stop an investigation against a banker. Viada refused.

One detail of the Lezo scandal has been especially damaging for the image of the judiciary.

In another published wiretapped conversation, González said he had been warned by a businessman that investigators had bugged those suspected of involvement in the water company case. González added that he had been told the leak came from a woman described as a "friend" and a "magistrate."

On and on and ...

Pilar Velasco, a journalist at radio station Cadena Ser, said the Lezo case has taken far too long to resolve.

Velasco started digging into González's dealings and lavish lifestyle around 2006. She argued that in 2009 there was "flagrant evidence" of irregularities - Gonzalez had a luxury villa in Madrid and a penthouse on the Costa del Sol, despite officially earning €6,000 a month.

In 2012 González filed a complaint against Velasco, accusing her of revealing secrets - she was placed under formal investigation for two years and later acquitted.

Yet the many years it's taken for justice to catch up with González isn't a surprise to people familiar with the judicial system.

Until 2015, as president of the Madrid region, González was aforado - a privilege enjoyed by public officials (a quarter of a million of them, if you include members of the security services), meaning he could only be judged by the highest courts, which are more politicized and have fewer investigating resources, argued Villegas, the judge.

"It's like there was a hidden Spain which you and I know nothing about ... a dirty world where they seem to be playing in the sewers" - Jesús Villegas

Legislators enjoy yet another privilege. Any investigation into them must first be approved by the legislative chamber to which they've been elected (in González's case, the Madrid assembly). Even if it gets approved, investigators lose the surprise factor.

Also, digging into opaque transactions and alleged sophisticated crimes, as in the Lezo case, relies heavily on the authorities providing key documents. Transparency laws in Spain are weak, many experts say, and therefore many of those cases fall apart once the government under suspicion leaves office.

Another important feature of the Lezo case is the media war waged against the current president of Madrid, the PP's Cristina Cifuentes, who replaced González in 2015.

The director of the newspaper La Razón, Francisco Marhuenda, was recorded plotting against Cifuentes in order protect González and his inner circle and confessing having taken a harder tone in one of the paper's op-ed to that end. "We have to scare her," Marhuenda told one of his associates.

Yet for all the weaknesses of the system, once a judge is actually presiding over a case, there's little the accused can do, no matter the power they wield. That clearly irked González who, in yet another leaked conversation, complained about judicial independence by saying "What do I have left? Fire two shots on the judge?"

The investigative judge who's dealt with big corruption cases said: "The judge is king in the courtroom."

Spanish judges who aren't independent are that way "simply because they don't want to be," said former Supreme Court magistrate Martín Pallín, adding that it would have been better for the country to address its corruption problem with preventive measures.

"Justice is like medicine," he said. "When you need to have surgery, it means things have become a little complicated."

"If members of the crown or ministers haven't been put on trial in other countries of Europe, it isn't because they're cleaner than we are," said Villegas, adding that the Lezo case has eroded his faith in justice.

"It's like there was a hidden Spain which you and I know nothing about ... a dirty world where they seem to be playing in the sewers ... behind those men dressing elegantly and posing for photos, is it all like that? Is it all really like that?"

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MADRID - A growing number of Spanish politicians and business leaders are ending their careers in an unexpected place: behind bars. Almost 1,500 people in Spain faced trial for corruption between July 2015 and the end of 2016, according to official figures. Around 70 percent of them were found guilty.

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Over the last several weeks, Chile's image as the political and economic darling of Latin America has been shattered. Sparked by a meager hike in subway fares, protests and marches have now metastasized into the worst unrest the country has seen since its transition to democracy in 1990. The president, Sebastián Piñera, has declared war on protesters, invoked a state of emergency, and unleashed a repressive crackdown that invokes memories of the last phase of dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet.

Shocked observers have struggled to understand these events, especially in light of the fact that Chile is Latin America's most prosperous country and one of its most politically stable. But those facts have always masked a much deeper and darker problem: The last vestiges of Chile's dictatorship were never entirely rooted out, and the persistent influence of former authoritarian elites and those who directly inherited their legacy over democratic politics is part of what is bringing protesters out on the streets today.

In this, Chile is hardly exceptional. In the 1980s and 1990s, most Latin American countries transitioned to democracy. But outgoing dictators and their inner circles rarely withdrew from politics. Instead, many authoritarian-era elites-including former dictators, junta members, cabinet ministers, and party officials- retained high-level posts in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches and in the military and local governments. In fact, post-transition, authoritarian-era elites in Latin America held on to high-level positions in one or more branches of government in roughly half of all years between 1900 and 2015.

Consider Chile. After its democratic transition in 1990, elites from the outgoing Pinochet dictatorship retained prominent positions in the military, National Congress, and local government well into the early 2010s. Pinochet himself remained head of the Chilean military until 1998 and a designated senator until 2002. Former junta member Gen. Rodolfo Stange Oelckers was a national senator until 2006, and former Government Minister Col. Cristián Labbé was mayor of Santiago's wealthy Providencia neighborhood until 2012.

Meanwhile, the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), a conservative party founded in the run-up to the democratic transition, brought together a host of military officers, cabinet ministers, business elites, and local politicians with close ties to the dictatorship. Many of the UDI's initial founders were in their late 20s and early 30s at the time of the transition and therefore still comprise an important component of the Chilean right. The country's recently sacked interior minister, who initially tried to quell the protests with government repression, was one of the UDI's founding leaders and earliest national deputies. Another early UDI leader, Hernán Larraín, still heads the Justice Ministry.

When former authoritarian elites capture important posts across a new democratic government, they can use their leverage to push policy decisions toward protecting their own interests over citizens'. In Chile, where the Pinochet dictatorship enshrined its political and economic project in an authoritarian constitution in 1980 that was then bequeathed to the democracy, this has meant bolstering institutional stability to avoid changing the practices and structures that benefit allies of the old regime.

In the early 1990s, for example, authoritarian-era elites successfully diluted labor and tax reforms that they believed would harm the wealthy and threaten their authoritarian project. Today, Chile remains one of Latin America's most unequal countries and one of the most unequal in the elite group of nations that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Not surprisingly, sky-high inequality is one of today's protesters' key targets. Indeed, over time, authoritarian influence becomes a recipe for broad unrest. Protests against a small increase in subway fares blow up to become demands for fundamental political change; the whole elite class is seen as out of touch with the everyday life of common citizens.

This same process continues to unfold throughout the region. Take Peru, for example, where a standoff between the president and congressional opposition over nominations to the country's Constitutional Court devolved into an ongoing constitutional crisis and mass protests in October. The issue ties back to the collapse of the Alberto Fujimori dictatorship in Peru in late 2000 amid allegations of widespread corruption.

In the immediate aftermath of the democratic transition, authoritarian elites were all but barred from government. But Peru's authoritarian-era elites would eventually make a stunning comeback: By 2007, former members of Peru's Congress and cabinet ministers from the dictatorship held key positions in the Congress and regional government. Additionally, under the leadership of Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the former dictator, the diverse factions that comprised the Fujimori political movement were consolidated into a new political party that would emerge in 2016 as the largest party in Peru, capturing a majority of seats in the Congress.

In recent years, this new political party, Popular Force, has forced the ouster of the president, blocked attempts to investigate corruption, and pushed forward its preferred judicial candidates without consideration of proposed reforms. It is no surprise that Peruvians eventually got fed up and have pushed to diminish the party's-and other elites'-influence.

As in Chile and Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Brazil all transitioned to democracy without punishing former authoritarian elites for their past misdeeds or even excluding them from positions of power under democracy. For instance, in Brazil, elites from the most recent military dictatorship still hold an array of posts and advisory positions across government. And far-right President Jair Bolsonaro now draws heavily on his alliance with the military in the day-to-day operation of the country.

Of course, the persistence of elites from an authoritarian past is rarely sufficient to trigger widespread unrest. But stalling economic growth can cast that influence in a new light, especially in countries where judiciaries, political parties, and independent regulators have allowed corruption to thrive and waste to proliferate.

But as Chile shows, even financially responsible and successful economies cannot entirely placate citizens when there is a yawning gap between the haves and have-nots, especially when many of the haves got there because of their ties to a brutal past. In these scenarios, incumbent political elites can quickly cause backlash by implementing unpopular economic policies and then reacting to popular opposition with disbelief. These galling responses drive citizens to recognize these politicians for what they are: out of touch.

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Pinochet Still Looms Large in Chilean Politics

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Over the last several weeks, Chile's image as the political and economic darling of Latin America has been shattered. Sparked by a meager hike in subway fares, protests and marches have now metastasized into the worst unrest the country has seen since its transition to democracy in 1990.

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Police near Peru's Congress, in Lima, on Tuesday. Credit... Paolo Aguilar/EPA, via Shutterstock

By Anatoly Kurmanaev and

Peru is facing its deepest political crisis in at least three decades, with the president dissolving Congress, Congress then moving to suspend the president - and the vice president, who had stepped up to lead the country, renouncing her position as well.

The vice president, Mercedes Aráoz, said late on Tuesday that she gave up her post because "the constitutional order in Peru is broken."

The head of the dissolved Congress, Pedro Olaechea, who learned of her resignation in the middle of an interview with CNN en Español, said he would also not assume power - a tactical win for the president, Martín Vizcarra, but not the end of turbulence for Peru.

Peru's dysfunctional and corruption-ridden political system has courted crisis for years, with three former presidents under investigation and another dead after shooting himself during his arrest. But matters came to a head when Mr. Vizcarra confronted the conservative forces controlling Congress and accused them of stonewalling his efforts to fight corruption and pass political reform.

On Monday afternoon, Mr. Vizcarra invoked a constitutional provision that allows him to dissolve Congress and to call new parliamentary elections. Congress responded by suspending him and setting off a constitutional standoff.

Protests in support of the president broke out in cities across the country on Monday night, but by Wednesday a tense calm had set in as the population tried to pick up their lives despite the political disarray in the capital, Lima.

While some Peruvians had celebrated Mr. Vizcarra's decision as a much overdue purge of the corrupt elites, others saw in the drastic move a reminder of Peru's despotic past.

Here's what you need to know to understand this deep-rooted crisis that will shape the future of South America's fastest-growing economy.

Mr. Vizcarra claims the opposition, which controls Congress, has repeatedly blocked his attempts to clean up Peruvian politics and pass much-needed reforms.

The last straw for Mr. Vizcarra came Monday, when he asked Congress for a vote of confidence to change the system for appointing judges to the country's highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal. This is the court that, among other things, arbitrates disputes between the president and Congress.

Lawmakers gave him the vote of confidence, but also went ahead and picked a constitutional judge of their choosing: the cousin of the head of Congress.

But this showdown with Congress was likely only a matter of time, said Carlos Meléndez, a Peruvian expert at the Diego Portales University in Santiago, Chile.

Mr. Vizcarra, a regional politician turned vice president, is a relative outsider in Lima's power circles. He took power last year when, facing corruption charges, the president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, stepped down.

Although his anticorruption platform has been popular with Peruvians, and Congress is widely reviled as venal, Mr. Vizcarra lacks an electoral mandate and a strong party. His party occupies only five seats among the country's 130 lawmakers.

His conservative opponents, led by the 54 lawmakers from the party of Mr. Kuczynski's presidential rival, Keiko Fujimori, hold the majority of the seats.

The Peruvian Constitution says the president can dissolve Congress if it twice denies his cabinet a vote of confidence.

But whether Mr. Vizcarra's actions met that standard depends on whose interpretation of the law you accept.

Over the past year, Mr. Vizcarra asked for that vote three times, using a constitutional mechanism to package reform proposals as a vote of confidence in his cabinet. In all instances, Congress approved his cabinet but ignored his proposals.

On Monday, Mr. Vizcarra argued that Congress's sleight of hand constituted a de facto vote of no confidence, giving him the right to shut down the legislature and call new elections.

"In spirit, the Congress had very definitely denied confidence to two cabinets; by the exact letter of the law, probably it had not," said Cynthia McClintock, a professor of political science at the George Washington University.

Because the legality of Mr. Vizcarra's move is uncertain, leaving open the question of whether Congress has been dissolved, it is also unclear whether it had the power to suspend Mr. Vizcarra and swear in his vice president, Ms. Aráoz. Peru now has a constitutional chicken and egg problem, said Michael Baney, a risk analyst at consultancy WorldAware.

"If the dissolution of Congress was legal, then it voting to strip Vizcarra of power was illegal, since it was no longer even in session," he said. "Of course, the inverse is also true: If Vizcarra's dissolution of Congress was illegal, then Congress was indeed in session and thus had the power to strip Vizcarra of his power."

The vice president, Ms. Aráoz, said on Twitter that she hoped her renunciation would lead to "general elections as soon as possible for the good of the country."

Peru's national register on Tuesday published the date for new parliamentary elections: They are scheduled for Jan. 26.

Mr. Vizcarra has support from key stakeholders: He published photos Monday night of himself surrounded by Peru's top generals, to show he has the army's support. The police obeyed his order and surrounded Congress with riot shields to prevent most lawmakers from entering on Tuesday.

And manifestations of support for him erupted in various cities across the country on Monday, with smiling protesters jumping and shouting, "Yes we could."

On Wednesday, Mr. Olaechea, the president of Congress, planned to meet with the caretaker commission of 27 lawmakers who by law manage the body while it is dissolved.

When asked during a televised interview if he would take the presidency, he said, "No, at this moment there is a de facto situation," he said, referring to Mr. Vizcarra effectively remaining in control, with the army's backing.

Holding up a copy of Peru's Constitution, he said, "I can't act any more than with this little book, which is the Constitution."

Analysts say the resolution of the crisis is likely to fall to Peru's courts, but even that scenario is uncertain. The main question is, which court? The struggle over appointments to Peru's Constitutional Tribunal is precisely what set off the current crisis.

After a day in which riot police blocked traffic and many businesses along the main avenues stayed closed, downtown Lima was bustling as usual by Wednesday morning.

The markets have so far largely shrugged off the crisis. Peruvian currency, bonds and stock market recovered most of their initial losses Tuesday, as investors banked on both political camps continuing the business-friendly policies that have fueled Peru's remarkable economic growth for the past decade.

The general mood in Lima's middle-class districts Tuesday was a combination of joy at the prospect of breaking the political stalemate and uncertainty. Monday's demonstrations by mostly young Peruvians in support of Mr. Vizcarra had been replaced by a tense calm.

To many Peruvians, particularly the young and the left-leaning, Mr. Vizcarra's move is a chance to wipe the slate clean and finally reform the corrupt political system, which allowed the country's traditional political parties to divvy up power and economic patronage at the expense of the country's development for decades.

A less vocal section of Peruvians, however, has expressed concern about repeating the mistakes of 1992, when the country last faced a constitutional crisis. Back then, another political outsider, an agronomist descendant of Japanese immigrants, Alberto Fujimori - the father of the current opposition leader, Keiko Fujimori - dissolved the Congress with a similar discourse of national rebirth.

Mr. Fujimori then proceeded to rule with an iron fist, dismantling courts, staffing institutions with loyalists and committing gross human rights violations in his quest to stamp out dissent. His daughter's party is still the largest force in Congress, epitomizing in its opponents' eyes the political decay that her father ostensibly came to power to combat.

Analysts warn that Peru's political paralysis could soon begin to wear down the country's steady economic growth, which has been fueled by mining and infrastructure investment. Peru's 3.9 percent economic growth forecast this year by the International Monetary Fund is a sign of financial health on a continent plagued by stagnation, stock market runs and outright collapse in nearby Venezuela.

However, Peru's basic economic model will likely remain untouched, regardless of which contender for the presidency comes out ahead.

"There are no signs at present that the favorable regulatory environment for the extractive sector, or the treatment of ongoing operational projects, will be adversely affected," said Diego Moya-Ocampos, a political risk analyst with IHS Markit in London.

Peru's foreign policy is also unlikely to change significantly. Both Mr. Vizcarra and Ms. Fujimori's party have taken a tough stance against the government of Venezuela, whose economic collapse has triggered the biggest geopolitical crisis in the region in decades.

But a breakdown of the constitutional order triggered by this week's events could come to haunt the country's political center in the next elections, said Abhijit Surya, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"The latest developments significantly heighten the risk that a radical, anti-establishment candidate will win the 2021 presidential elections," he wrote in a note to clients Tuesday.

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Who's in Charge in Peru? Peruvians Can't Agree

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By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Peru is facing its deepest political crisis in at least three decades, with the president dissolving Congress, Congress then moving to suspend the president - and the vice president, who had stepped up to lead the country, renouncing her position as well.

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For the past 10 months, Luis Andrade has suffered a baleful daily routine. Every morning, the former McKinsey consultant has breakfast in his Bogotá apartment, works out at the downstairs gym, then goes online, watches movies or scans the news. He has little else to do.

By law, Mr Andrade cannot leave his building overlooking the Colombian capital. His enforced isolation is far from the days when he jetted between clients in New York, São Paulo and Bogotá. It is also an abrupt fall from grace from his recent job.

Until last year, Mr Andrade ran a $20bn portfolio of projects at the National Infrastructure Agency, and was so well regarded that Juan Manuel Santos, the then-president, described his work as "transparent, honest, impeccable". Now the mild-mannered 58-year-old is under house arrest for alleged corruption.

Mr Andrade's charges stem from the Odebrecht scandal that has rocked Latin America and that the US Department of Justice has called the world's biggest bribery scheme. The probe into the Brazilian construction firm has felled a Brazilian and a Peruvian president, and led to the conviction of scores of business leaders and government officials across the region.

Popular anger over the scandal has also helped make corruption many voters' main concern during the marathon of Latin American elections held this year, including in Colombia. Iván Duque, the centre-right president who began his term on August 7, has said he wants Colombia to be "a shining example of law". There will even be a referendum about corruption this month.

What makes Mr Andrade's case unusual, though, is that many people regard him as honourable and say he did not accept bribes from Odebrecht. The attorney-general's office has said there is no evidence of that, a view that gels with testimonies of those who have admitted to paying bribes.

"The Colombian legal system is Kafkaesque," Mr Andrade told the Financial Times.

Many agree.

"This is an extremely legalistic country," notes Rodrigo Uprimny, a former Constitutional Court magistrate and member of the International Commission of Jurists. "It's the most legalistic in Latin America and one of the most legalistic in the world."

Indeed, such a legalistic culture highlights not only Mr Andrade's curious situation but also the challenges Mr Duque faces over the next four years, many of which have a legal basis. These range from implementing Colombia's controversial 2016 peace process with Marxist Farc guerrillas, to Venezuela's crisis, and the fate of Mr Duque's political mentor - the polarising figure of Álvaro Uribe, the former president.

A key factor across all these issues is whether Colombia's legal traditions can help restore confidence in national institutions, or be manipulated by the powerful to save themselves and attack their enemies.

'A nation of angels'

The notion of Colombia as legalistic may seem counter-intuitive given its reputation for extreme illegality - as dramatised in the Netflix series Narcos. Popular lore even celebrates the rule-bending culture of the vivo, or street sharp. "The vivo lives off the fool, while the fool lives off his work," runs the refrain. There is also the tragic illegality of a six-decade civil conflict that left a quarter of a million dead.

Yet extreme legalism is as strong a Colombian tradition. It dates from the 19th century and Francisco de Paula Santander, a founding national father known as the "man of laws". Victor Hugo later mocked the country's 1863 constitution as written for "a nation of angels". But the lofty quality of Colombian jurisprudence is renowned - as is the bravery of many of its judges who stood up to drug lords such as Pablo Escobar, and who still exercise judicial independence today.

"Most judges take a deep pride in their work, and often risk their lives - which is interesting as they operate in such a violent and corrupt country," said José Miguel Vivanco, the head of Human Rights Watch and a Chilean lawyer who has worked in Latin America for 30 years. "Colombia probably has the region's most sophisticated approach to legal principles; it goes far beyond formulistic debate."

The flipside of that coin, however, is a complex legal system. There are five higher courts: a Constitutional Court; a Supreme Court; a State Council, which adjudicates on public/private disputes; an Electoral Court; and a National Judicial Council to investigate judges.

Furthermore, as of this year, Colombia has yet another court system, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace tribunals, or JEP. It will rule on war crimes from the civil conflict, and has been hailed by some as a model for peace processes elsewhere. "Colombia is a paradise for lawyers," says Fernando Carrillo, the state ombudsman.

Adding further complexity to the system are tutelas - legal complaints launched by individuals if they believe constitutional rights are infringed.

Néstor Osuna, professor of constitutional law at Bogotá's Externado University, says a staggering 7m tutelas have been lodged since the 1991 constitution launched the system. One recent tutela judged that the 1m Venezuelan refugees in Colombia can have access to the national health system.

"Often [all] these courts end up working at cross-purposes," said Ramiro Bejarano, a leading civil and commercial lawyer. "On the one hand, that creates a system of checks and balances as the courts balance each other out. The problem, though, is that the system has become corrupt, often because the judges are appointed via a political process."

This politicisation of Colombia's legal system is essentially why Mr Andrade believes he is under arrest.

In 2011, he gave up his McKinsey job to work in Colombia's public sector with a specific task: cleaning up the National Concessions Institute (Inco), a notoriously mismanaged institution. Cost overruns on Inco projects were often huge, with the extra cash allegedly shared between corrupt beneficiaries. Such illicit payments are colloquially known as "marmalade", and are often spread around to fund political campaigns.

Rather than reform Inco, Mr Andrade created the National Infrastructure Agency. Roads and bridges were built as investment flowed in. In 2014, P3 Bulletin, a specialist journal, voted ANI the best public-private partnership agency in the Americas. Under Mr Andrade, it awarded more than 30 contracts without any legal complaint, notes Ryan Butta, an Australian who has experience in Colombian infrastructure and has written about Mr Andrade's case.

However, the ANI also had some infrastructure contracts with Odebrecht left over from Inco. When the Odebrecht scandal erupted in 2016, Mr Andrade was dragged in.

As elsewhere in Latin America, the scandal had a political dimension. It emerged that Odebrecht provided funding towards not only the 2014 presidential re-election campaign of Mr Santos but also his rival, Óscar Iván Zuluaga. Further complicating matters is an apparent conflict of interest that reaches to the heights of Colombian politics and finance.

The investigation is led by the office of the attorney-general. He is Néstor Humberto Martínez, a former legal adviser to Luis Carlos Sarmiento, Colombia's richest man. Mr Sarmiento, who has an estimated $11bn fortune, is the founder and chairman of financial conglomerate Grupo Aval, which controls a subsidiary, Corficolombiana, an Odebrecht minority partner.

Grupo Aval says it is a "victim" of Odebrecht's fraud and strongly denies any involvement in corruption. Mr Martinez denies any conflict of interest, saying he has withdrawn from the case due to his past links with Aval and has handed it to another prosecutor.

Caught in the crosshairs, meanwhile, is Mr Andrade. According to Mr Butta, who wrote a detailed blog on the case, Mr Andrade faces charges of "undue interest in the awarding of a contract" - a "nebulous" term which essentially means he was influenced by others who took bribes.

Mr Andrade believes instead that he is being "punished for getting in the way of the interests of the most corrupt company in Latin American history [Odebrecht]" as well as "the corrupt political establishment".

Last week the attorney-general's office levied fresh charges against Mr Andrade, including destruction of evidence. Mr Andrade, who has called for an independent investigation, could be sentenced to 30 years.

For its part, Odebrecht says it has spent 18 months seeking to agree a reparations settlement, as it has done elsewhere in Latin America. But Colombia "seems to be the one country where we have struggled to reach such an agreement".

It is not just big business and civil servants that have become entangled in such legal and political controversies but also senior judges and even former president Uribe. Their tangle of interests goes to the dark centre of Colombia's civil conflict, and traumas that the country seeks to heal.

Last year, the country's anti-corruption chief, Luis Gustavo Moreno, was arrested for corruption after the US Drug Enforcement Agency taped him accepting a bribe in Miami.

In a plea bargain, Mr Moreno said several Supreme Court judges had accepted payment from politicians in exchange for favourable verdicts during investigations into their alleged ties to paramilitary death squads.

The scandal, which became known as the "Cartel of the Robes", a reference to judges' flowing gowns, shocked the country. "There was full, eventual disclosure", and nothing was swept under the carpet "as might happen in Mexico or Central America", Mr Vivanco notes. Still, the scandal sapped Colombian confidence in their institutions.

According to a Gallup poll, only 11 per cent now have a positive view of their judicial system compared with 50 per cent a decade ago. Moreover, that faith will be tested as the JEP tribunals hear inevitably controversial war cases, and Mr Uribe himself comes under the legal spotlight.

A divisive but popular politician, Mr Uribe heads the largest rightwing party, which provides Mr Duque with crucial Congressional support. He also has a long history of brushes with the law. Over the past decade, he has been dogged by claims of links to death squads and that he has bribed witnesses.

Mr Uribe vehemently denies the accusations, which supporters say are politically motivated, and he has never been charged. But in July, the Supreme Court placed him under formal investigation for bribery and perverting the course of justice.

The case puts Mr Duque in a tricky position. Does he stand by his political patron and defend him from the accusations, which Mr Uribe denies, or does he distance himself and let justice run its course? For many, the outcome will be the biggest test yet of the judiciary's independence.

"The Supreme Court may well be incapable of standing up to a government backed by Uribe," said Mr Bejarano, reflecting a widespread sense that, even in this highly legalistic country, power and money often trump justice.

If Mr Bejarano is right, it would be of a piece with Mr Andrade's situation, where a thorny case involving powerful men has apparently been kicked into the long grass. More importantly, it will mark whether Colombia can move on from war and prove that it really is a "country where the law shines bright".

A model peace process?
This article, which has been revised since its original publication to provide attribution to Mr Butta, resulted in a complaint to the Editorial Complaints Commissioner, who found a breach of Article 7(2). The Adjudication can be read here.

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Colombia and corruption: the problem of extreme legalism

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For the past 10 months, Luis Andrade has suffered a baleful daily routine. Every morning, the former McKinsey consultant has breakfast in his Bogotá apartment, works out at the downstairs gym, then goes online, watches movies or scans the news. He has little else to do.

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transcript

One Country, Two Presidents: The Crisis in Venezuela

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Lynsea Garrison, Theo Balcomb and Paige Cowett, and edited by Lisa Tobin

As the once-prosperous nation faces economic and political collapse, the struggle over its leadership may hinge on the military.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."

Today: A remarkable battle for power is playing out in Venezuela, with dueling claims to the presidency and talk of a coup. Nick Casey on the crisis in Caracas.

It's Friday, January 25.

nicholas casey

So on January 10 in Caracas, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro put his hand on a book and swore himself in as president for another six-year term.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Then two weeks later, in another part of Caracas on a sunny day, a little-known lawmaker named Juan Guaidó stood before a group of people and held a kind of citizens' swearing-in ceremony, where he said he was the president of Venezuela.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

And he was prepared to lead the country himself.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

So two men are declaring themselves the president of Venezuela.

nicholas casey

One country, two presidents.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

And Nick, how is that possible? What has been going on in Venezuela that leads these two men, at the exact same time, to declare themselves the rightful leader of the country?

nicholas casey

Well, you have to turn the clock back to last year, just before the summer.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording

Official campaigning for Venezuela's presidential election has kicked off with huge rallies by the candidates.

nicholas casey

When Maduro was running for re-election. And remember, he'd been president of this country during this massive disaster in Venezuela. At the beginning of the summer, the currency was collapsing, people were losing even more of their savings than they ever had, hospitals were completely out of supplies. And they had been for years. I was there during that time. I got sick, I got dengue, and they weren't able to do anything about it.

michael barbaro

Wow.

nicholas casey

This was the state of the country that has the world's largest proven reserves of oil. It was at an all-time low. And Nicolás Maduro was asking them to give him another six years as the president.

michael barbaro

And that would seem quite counterintuitive. What was his standing at that moment? How many people blamed him for the situation?

nicholas casey

Everybody blamed him. You would go around in the neighborhoods in Caracas, and they would point at how skinny they were, and say this is the consequence of the Maduro diet.

archived recording

The Maduro diet, named after the current president, Nicolás Maduro.

nicholas casey

That's what it's called there when people have lost a bunch of weight.

archived recording

Over the past year, 74 percent of Venezuelans lost an average of 8.7 kilos in weight.

nicholas casey

He's even laughed about that. He says he thinks it's funny. This is a man who's shown very little sympathy for this massive crisis that the country is going through, so you would think, under normal circumstances, that it would be impossible that this person would be re-elected by the country that had been so brought down during his first term as president.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

So then here comes the night of the election, and the results come in, and Maduro has won.

archived recording

Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, has been declared the winner of Sunday's election.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording (interpreter)

We won again. We were triumphant again. We've overcome all obstacles. We are the strength of history transformed into a popular victory - permanent popular victory.

nicholas casey

He's going to be president for another six years, and to many Venezuelans, they found that terribly shocking.

archived recording

Today, the world have the eyes here in Venezuela. What Venezuelans have at stake today is their own survival as a democratic nation. Venezuela's a dictatorship. The world can no longer turn a blind eye to that reality.

nicholas casey

The whole manner in which this election was conducted was under a big cloud, and immediately, you see countries outside of Venezuela condemning what had happened, saying that the election may have been rigged, that they're not going to recognize Nicolás Maduro.

archived recording

Leaders are denouncing his win as a sham. Panama, Costa Rica, Chile and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. said they won't recognize the results of the election. President Trump signing a new executive order this afternoon following the results of that controversial Venezuelan election. The executive order is designed to try and prevent the Venezuelan government from selling off its assets.

nicholas casey

And yet, if you're in Venezuela, it looks like you're going to have Maduro as your president for another six years.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording (interpreter)

They said that you were obliged to vote.

They said that people were coerced. It's a lack of respect.

nicholas casey

So months passed. People are generally depressed about where things are going to go. And throughout this process, people are asking, "Well, wait a second. Where's the opposition, here? Why are they not protesting? Why are they not trying to stand up to what's going on or offer any alternative?

archived recording

He cracked down on dissenting voices. Prominent opposition leaders were arrested or put under house arrest.

nicholas casey

There was getting to be very little of the opposition left. The regime was going through and picking off - leader after leader off, and issuing orders of arrest for them, and they'd disappear. You'd find them in Colombia, you'd find them in Chile.

archived recording

Dragged from a car and briefly detained, this is believed to be the moment security agents in Venezuela arrested the country's opposition leader, Juan Guaidó. The leader of the National Assembly -

nicholas casey

The opposition was getting thinner and thinner at this point, to the point that either you had an arrest warrant against you, or you thought there might be one soon. And you had just many, many people, both politicians and supporters of the opposition, leaving the country. Because after an election like that, kind of, what hope do you have to try to challenge this guy?

michael barbaro

Then what happened?

nicholas casey

Well, Maduro continued on, and he had his re-inauguration, which was January the 10th. I think he thought everything was going to go very smoothly. He had a big ceremony, many of the people in his government attended, and he said, "We're starting another six-year term."

And it's then the opposition starts to leap into action.

archived recording

Although parliament is now largely toothless, its leader, Juan Guaidó, has vowed to fight back.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording (interpreter)

We reaffirm the illegitimacy of Nicolás Maduro. As a result -

nicholas casey

The opposition had a card up its sleeve, which was the Venezuelan Constitution. There are articles that they can use if a president has seized power illegally, and they say that this inauguration that he's done for himself was a seizing of power, because he didn't win that election back last year. In this case, this triggers a mechanism in Venezuela, whereby the legislature gets to take control of the country and decide who's going to be running it, in which case, it gets to be the president of the National Assembly, who was Juan Guaidó, the 35-year-old young lawmaker who no one had ever heard of - one of the last remaining men standing.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

He did something that no one in the opposition had been willing to do, which was to take Maduro on by saying that he was actually the president of Venezuela, which was an extremely audacious move.

michael barbaro

Right.

nicholas casey

It's really hard to underestimate how much risk is involved in taking on Maduro this way.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

So beyond invoking obscure rules from the Constitution, what is Guaidó's plan for how to execute this and knock out Maduro?

nicholas casey

Well, I think you saw some of it the day that he inaugurated himself. And this was a really surprising day for everybody that was covering this, because he went out, he had this big ceremony, and just within minutes of him declaring himself the president of Venezuela, you had an announcement from the U.S. that they were going to recognize him.

archived recording (vice president mike pence)

Hola. I'm Mike Pence, the vice president of the United States. And on behalf of President Donald Trump and all the American people, let me express the unwavering support of the United States as you, the people of Venezuela, raise your voices in a call for freedom. Nicolás Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power. He's never won the presidency in a free and fair election, and he's maintained his grip of power by imprisoning anyone who dares to oppose him. The United States joined -

nicholas casey

And then you had an announcement from Canada that they were going to recognize them.

archived recording

So let me say on behalf of Canada that we recognize and express our full support for the interim presidency of Venezuela, assumed by the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó.

nicholas casey

And then it just became sort of like dominoes. You had Costa Rica and Paraguay and Argentina.

archived recording

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Peru and Brazil.

archived recording

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Colombia.

archived recording

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

All of these countries suddenly said, "Now we no longer recognize Maduro. It's Guaidó who's the president of Venezuela now." So what you could see was there must have been another part of this plan, here, which wasn't just to make this crazy statement that he was the president. But also, potentially, a back channel, in which they had a lot of other countries lined up to go along with this plan when he did it on Wednesday.

michael barbaro

I have to say that I'm struck that all these major democracies are backing Guaidó, who is not democratically elected as the leader of Venezuela. Why, exactly, are they doing that?

nicholas casey

Yeah, well, I'm surprised too, frankly, covering this. You know, he wasn't elected, and people didn't really know who he was. I think people are still trying to look under the hood of who this man is. So what does it show? It shows that the international community has gotten pretty desperate at this point in finding any alternative to Maduro, who's become a dictator. So I think when the international countries - when Venezuela's neighbors, when the U.S., finally saw that there was someone who was finally willing to take him on face-to-face, they seized the opportunity. And it's a big gamble, because they're gambling on someone that doesn't really have a long track record, a long history, and Venezuela, frankly, is just beginning to know.

michael barbaro

So countries like the U.S. are not so much supporting Guaidó as they are supporting the removal and the substitution of Maduro.

nicholas casey

If Maduro is gone, someone's got to be in charge. So if your goal is to get rid of Maduro, your goal also has to be to say who would be the president, then. And I think that's largely the reason why Guaidó has so much backing right now, is because he's not Maduro.

archived recording (vice president mike pence)

The United States joins with all freedom-loving nations in recognizing the National Assembly as the last vestige of democracy in your country, for it's the only body elected by you, the people. As such, the United States supports the courageous decision by Juan Guaidó, the president of your National Assembly, to assert that body's constitutional powers, declare Maduro a usurper and call for the establishment of a transitional government. On behalf of the American people, we say to all the good people of Venezuela, [SPEAKING SPANISH].. We are with you. We stand with you. And we will stay with you until democracy is restored, and you reclaim your birthright of libertad. [SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

So how does Maduro respond to this big international outpouring of support for, basically, his ouster?

nicholas casey

Well, he threw a big tantrum on Wednesday.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Starting with declaring that he was cutting diplomatic ties to the U.S., he ordered the personnel of the embassy out in 72 hours. This started kind of a fascinating chain of events, where the U.S. said it wasn't going to leave, because it recognized Juan Guaidó as the president, and Guaidó came out with a statement saying, "Your embassy officials are welcome to stay. We're the government, and we would love to have diplomatic relations with you continue just as they had before."

michael barbaro

And how have the people of Venezuela responded to this intervention by countries like the U.S.?

nicholas casey

It's been surprising to me. It was surprising to me starting maybe 18 months ago, when I talked to friends and colleagues who were back in Venezuela, and they would ask me what the U.S. was going to do about this. And my response would always be, "What do you mean what the U.S. is going to do about it? You don't, certainly, want the U.S. to be involved in this, do you?"

michael barbaro

Why?

nicholas casey

The U.S. has got kind of a long history in Latin America that people don't like. I mean, it was the U.S. that brought Pinochet into power. It was the U.S. that had the coup that got rid of Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala in the 1950s, who was a democratically elected leader. U.S.' history of interventions has been very checkered, but it is a consequence of this strange situation that Maduro has put the country in, where an unpopular leader who's presiding over a deep collapse in the country won't go, won't take the exit. The people have actually got to the position - and this isn't everybody in Venezuela, but this is a lot of people in Venezuela, who are saying, "Why doesn't the U.S. intervene and try to save us? And if it's not the U.S., then why don't our own military do this?" I think that's what you actually hear much more on the streets of Venezuela, is, "How could the military stand by and let this man continue to run the country as he does?" And these two things, asking for intervention and asking for a military coup, are parts of the past that Latin America has been trying to bury for years. So to see them both be part of the landscape again in Venezuela I find to be a little bit terrifying, frankly. I met a woman who was protesting in a plaza last year, and she was telling me how much she wanted Donald Trump to intervene. And this shocked me. She told me that she'd be happy to see U.S. tanks circling around Caracas. And I told her, "Do you know what this means to have a U.S. invasion of your country?" And this girl was 19. I don't think she really knew. But you are seeing people that are saying things that you would have thought were preposterous years ago, because they've suffered so many years under Maduro.

michael barbaro

Given the openness, because of the situation in Venezuela, to countries like the U.S. weighing in, does the support and the recognition of all these international powers give the opposition more power as they try to take over?

nicholas casey

Well, it does and it doesn't. Symbolically, it's great. They have all this support from outside of Venezuela. But what they need is support inside Venezuela. What they have now is all the recognition, but they don't have any of the weapons. They don't have control over the military, and ultimately, it's the military that's going to be the arbiter of power in Venezuela and really has been the one that's been holding up Maduro. If anything's going to change, they have to go from holding up Maduro to holding up Guaidó. Ultimately, the power in any constitutional democracy is kind of imaginary. It's whether people are willing to respect the norms. And when they don't, like what's happened in Venezuela, and the Constitution has kind of melted away, it just comes down to the people that have got the weapons as the ones that can say who's in charge. It's the ones with the weapons that are saying Maduro is in charge, and if that changes, it's probably going to be the same generals who are the ones that determine that he's not.

michael barbaro

Does that start to look, Nick, like a military coup backed by the U.S. government?

nicholas casey

It does. Because you have the U.S. government supporting opposition parties that are supporting military intervention by their own military against the man who is running the government. Each of those links is there, and it would link the U.S. to what happens afterward. You just don't know. When you ask the armed forces to get involved, it's really up to them what happens next.

michael barbaro

So it could all go very badly. And then everybody who supported it would be implicated, including the U.S.

nicholas casey

Yeah, potentially.

michael barbaro

So what exactly is the military weighing right now, knowing that they hold all the power in this equation?

nicholas casey

So on one side, the military lives very well under Maduro. The top brass of the military live lavish lives. There's lots of forms of revenue, they have lots of control over the economy. Many top officers are involved in the drug trade, smuggling. Even though there's a big crisis in Venezuela, they're not living it at the top. On the other end, they're seeing that this institution, which had been beloved by Venezuelans, is getting increasingly tarnished for being on the side of Maduro. And they're also seeing that so much of the world is now getting behind Guaidó, and wondering, probably, whether Maduro is going to be around forever, and what they're going to do after Maduro is gone themselves. So this is kind of the dilemma that they're facing. Whose side did they get on? Which side do they think is going to be right in history?

michael barbaro

And Nick, given how much time you have spent on the ground in Venezuela, I wonder if you have an instinct for which of these will weigh more on the military, and how it will go.

nicholas casey

Well, I can't say how long it's going to take, but I think that these military officers and rank and file people are looking out their windows every morning. And they're seeing that the crowds are angry, and that they're getting bigger, and that they need to do something about these crowds. And they need to get on the side of them, as opposed to the side of the single person who's running the country. But I have no idea how they're going to make that decision or when.

As the once-prosperous nation faces economic and political collapse, the struggle over its leadership may hinge on the military.

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Lynsea Garrison, Theo Balcomb and Paige Cowett, and edited by Lisa Tobin

Back to The Daily

transcript

One Country, Two Presidents: The Crisis in Venezuela

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Lynsea Garrison, Theo Balcomb and Paige Cowett, and edited by Lisa Tobin

As the once-prosperous nation faces economic and political collapse, the struggle over its leadership may hinge on the military.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."

Today: A remarkable battle for power is playing out in Venezuela, with dueling claims to the presidency and talk of a coup. Nick Casey on the crisis in Caracas.

It's Friday, January 25.

nicholas casey

So on January 10 in Caracas, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro put his hand on a book and swore himself in as president for another six-year term.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Then two weeks later, in another part of Caracas on a sunny day, a little-known lawmaker named Juan Guaidó stood before a group of people and held a kind of citizens' swearing-in ceremony, where he said he was the president of Venezuela.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

And he was prepared to lead the country himself.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

So two men are declaring themselves the president of Venezuela.

nicholas casey

One country, two presidents.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

And Nick, how is that possible? What has been going on in Venezuela that leads these two men, at the exact same time, to declare themselves the rightful leader of the country?

nicholas casey

Well, you have to turn the clock back to last year, just before the summer.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording

Official campaigning for Venezuela's presidential election has kicked off with huge rallies by the candidates.

nicholas casey

When Maduro was running for re-election. And remember, he'd been president of this country during this massive disaster in Venezuela. At the beginning of the summer, the currency was collapsing, people were losing even more of their savings than they ever had, hospitals were completely out of supplies. And they had been for years. I was there during that time. I got sick, I got dengue, and they weren't able to do anything about it.

michael barbaro

Wow.

nicholas casey

This was the state of the country that has the world's largest proven reserves of oil. It was at an all-time low. And Nicolás Maduro was asking them to give him another six years as the president.

michael barbaro

And that would seem quite counterintuitive. What was his standing at that moment? How many people blamed him for the situation?

nicholas casey

Everybody blamed him. You would go around in the neighborhoods in Caracas, and they would point at how skinny they were, and say this is the consequence of the Maduro diet.

archived recording

The Maduro diet, named after the current president, Nicolás Maduro.

nicholas casey

That's what it's called there when people have lost a bunch of weight.

archived recording

Over the past year, 74 percent of Venezuelans lost an average of 8.7 kilos in weight.

nicholas casey

He's even laughed about that. He says he thinks it's funny. This is a man who's shown very little sympathy for this massive crisis that the country is going through, so you would think, under normal circumstances, that it would be impossible that this person would be re-elected by the country that had been so brought down during his first term as president.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

So then here comes the night of the election, and the results come in, and Maduro has won.

archived recording

Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, has been declared the winner of Sunday's election.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording (interpreter)

We won again. We were triumphant again. We've overcome all obstacles. We are the strength of history transformed into a popular victory - permanent popular victory.

nicholas casey

He's going to be president for another six years, and to many Venezuelans, they found that terribly shocking.

archived recording

Today, the world have the eyes here in Venezuela. What Venezuelans have at stake today is their own survival as a democratic nation. Venezuela's a dictatorship. The world can no longer turn a blind eye to that reality.

nicholas casey

The whole manner in which this election was conducted was under a big cloud, and immediately, you see countries outside of Venezuela condemning what had happened, saying that the election may have been rigged, that they're not going to recognize Nicolás Maduro.

archived recording

Leaders are denouncing his win as a sham. Panama, Costa Rica, Chile and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. said they won't recognize the results of the election. President Trump signing a new executive order this afternoon following the results of that controversial Venezuelan election. The executive order is designed to try and prevent the Venezuelan government from selling off its assets.

nicholas casey

And yet, if you're in Venezuela, it looks like you're going to have Maduro as your president for another six years.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording (interpreter)

They said that you were obliged to vote.

They said that people were coerced. It's a lack of respect.

nicholas casey

So months passed. People are generally depressed about where things are going to go. And throughout this process, people are asking, "Well, wait a second. Where's the opposition, here? Why are they not protesting? Why are they not trying to stand up to what's going on or offer any alternative?

archived recording

He cracked down on dissenting voices. Prominent opposition leaders were arrested or put under house arrest.

nicholas casey

There was getting to be very little of the opposition left. The regime was going through and picking off - leader after leader off, and issuing orders of arrest for them, and they'd disappear. You'd find them in Colombia, you'd find them in Chile.

archived recording

Dragged from a car and briefly detained, this is believed to be the moment security agents in Venezuela arrested the country's opposition leader, Juan Guaidó. The leader of the National Assembly -

nicholas casey

The opposition was getting thinner and thinner at this point, to the point that either you had an arrest warrant against you, or you thought there might be one soon. And you had just many, many people, both politicians and supporters of the opposition, leaving the country. Because after an election like that, kind of, what hope do you have to try to challenge this guy?

michael barbaro

Then what happened?

nicholas casey

Well, Maduro continued on, and he had his re-inauguration, which was January the 10th. I think he thought everything was going to go very smoothly. He had a big ceremony, many of the people in his government attended, and he said, "We're starting another six-year term."

And it's then the opposition starts to leap into action.

archived recording

Although parliament is now largely toothless, its leader, Juan Guaidó, has vowed to fight back.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

archived recording (interpreter)

We reaffirm the illegitimacy of Nicolás Maduro. As a result -

nicholas casey

The opposition had a card up its sleeve, which was the Venezuelan Constitution. There are articles that they can use if a president has seized power illegally, and they say that this inauguration that he's done for himself was a seizing of power, because he didn't win that election back last year. In this case, this triggers a mechanism in Venezuela, whereby the legislature gets to take control of the country and decide who's going to be running it, in which case, it gets to be the president of the National Assembly, who was Juan Guaidó, the 35-year-old young lawmaker who no one had ever heard of - one of the last remaining men standing.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

He did something that no one in the opposition had been willing to do, which was to take Maduro on by saying that he was actually the president of Venezuela, which was an extremely audacious move.

michael barbaro

Right.

nicholas casey

It's really hard to underestimate how much risk is involved in taking on Maduro this way.

archived recording (juan guaidó)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

So beyond invoking obscure rules from the Constitution, what is Guaidó's plan for how to execute this and knock out Maduro?

nicholas casey

Well, I think you saw some of it the day that he inaugurated himself. And this was a really surprising day for everybody that was covering this, because he went out, he had this big ceremony, and just within minutes of him declaring himself the president of Venezuela, you had an announcement from the U.S. that they were going to recognize him.

archived recording (vice president mike pence)

Hola. I'm Mike Pence, the vice president of the United States. And on behalf of President Donald Trump and all the American people, let me express the unwavering support of the United States as you, the people of Venezuela, raise your voices in a call for freedom. Nicolás Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power. He's never won the presidency in a free and fair election, and he's maintained his grip of power by imprisoning anyone who dares to oppose him. The United States joined -

nicholas casey

And then you had an announcement from Canada that they were going to recognize them.

archived recording

So let me say on behalf of Canada that we recognize and express our full support for the interim presidency of Venezuela, assumed by the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó.

nicholas casey

And then it just became sort of like dominoes. You had Costa Rica and Paraguay and Argentina.

archived recording

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Peru and Brazil.

archived recording

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Colombia.

archived recording

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

All of these countries suddenly said, "Now we no longer recognize Maduro. It's Guaidó who's the president of Venezuela now." So what you could see was there must have been another part of this plan, here, which wasn't just to make this crazy statement that he was the president. But also, potentially, a back channel, in which they had a lot of other countries lined up to go along with this plan when he did it on Wednesday.

michael barbaro

I have to say that I'm struck that all these major democracies are backing Guaidó, who is not democratically elected as the leader of Venezuela. Why, exactly, are they doing that?

nicholas casey

Yeah, well, I'm surprised too, frankly, covering this. You know, he wasn't elected, and people didn't really know who he was. I think people are still trying to look under the hood of who this man is. So what does it show? It shows that the international community has gotten pretty desperate at this point in finding any alternative to Maduro, who's become a dictator. So I think when the international countries - when Venezuela's neighbors, when the U.S., finally saw that there was someone who was finally willing to take him on face-to-face, they seized the opportunity. And it's a big gamble, because they're gambling on someone that doesn't really have a long track record, a long history, and Venezuela, frankly, is just beginning to know.

michael barbaro

So countries like the U.S. are not so much supporting Guaidó as they are supporting the removal and the substitution of Maduro.

nicholas casey

If Maduro is gone, someone's got to be in charge. So if your goal is to get rid of Maduro, your goal also has to be to say who would be the president, then. And I think that's largely the reason why Guaidó has so much backing right now, is because he's not Maduro.

archived recording (vice president mike pence)

The United States joins with all freedom-loving nations in recognizing the National Assembly as the last vestige of democracy in your country, for it's the only body elected by you, the people. As such, the United States supports the courageous decision by Juan Guaidó, the president of your National Assembly, to assert that body's constitutional powers, declare Maduro a usurper and call for the establishment of a transitional government. On behalf of the American people, we say to all the good people of Venezuela, [SPEAKING SPANISH].. We are with you. We stand with you. And we will stay with you until democracy is restored, and you reclaim your birthright of libertad. [SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

So how does Maduro respond to this big international outpouring of support for, basically, his ouster?

nicholas casey

Well, he threw a big tantrum on Wednesday.

archived recording (nicolás maduro)

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

Starting with declaring that he was cutting diplomatic ties to the U.S., he ordered the personnel of the embassy out in 72 hours. This started kind of a fascinating chain of events, where the U.S. said it wasn't going to leave, because it recognized Juan Guaidó as the president, and Guaidó came out with a statement saying, "Your embassy officials are welcome to stay. We're the government, and we would love to have diplomatic relations with you continue just as they had before."

michael barbaro

And how have the people of Venezuela responded to this intervention by countries like the U.S.?

nicholas casey

It's been surprising to me. It was surprising to me starting maybe 18 months ago, when I talked to friends and colleagues who were back in Venezuela, and they would ask me what the U.S. was going to do about this. And my response would always be, "What do you mean what the U.S. is going to do about it? You don't, certainly, want the U.S. to be involved in this, do you?"

michael barbaro

Why?

nicholas casey

The U.S. has got kind of a long history in Latin America that people don't like. I mean, it was the U.S. that brought Pinochet into power. It was the U.S. that had the coup that got rid of Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala in the 1950s, who was a democratically elected leader. U.S.' history of interventions has been very checkered, but it is a consequence of this strange situation that Maduro has put the country in, where an unpopular leader who's presiding over a deep collapse in the country won't go, won't take the exit. The people have actually got to the position - and this isn't everybody in Venezuela, but this is a lot of people in Venezuela, who are saying, "Why doesn't the U.S. intervene and try to save us? And if it's not the U.S., then why don't our own military do this?" I think that's what you actually hear much more on the streets of Venezuela, is, "How could the military stand by and let this man continue to run the country as he does?" And these two things, asking for intervention and asking for a military coup, are parts of the past that Latin America has been trying to bury for years. So to see them both be part of the landscape again in Venezuela I find to be a little bit terrifying, frankly. I met a woman who was protesting in a plaza last year, and she was telling me how much she wanted Donald Trump to intervene. And this shocked me. She told me that she'd be happy to see U.S. tanks circling around Caracas. And I told her, "Do you know what this means to have a U.S. invasion of your country?" And this girl was 19. I don't think she really knew. But you are seeing people that are saying things that you would have thought were preposterous years ago, because they've suffered so many years under Maduro.

michael barbaro

Given the openness, because of the situation in Venezuela, to countries like the U.S. weighing in, does the support and the recognition of all these international powers give the opposition more power as they try to take over?

nicholas casey

Well, it does and it doesn't. Symbolically, it's great. They have all this support from outside of Venezuela. But what they need is support inside Venezuela. What they have now is all the recognition, but they don't have any of the weapons. They don't have control over the military, and ultimately, it's the military that's going to be the arbiter of power in Venezuela and really has been the one that's been holding up Maduro. If anything's going to change, they have to go from holding up Maduro to holding up Guaidó. Ultimately, the power in any constitutional democracy is kind of imaginary. It's whether people are willing to respect the norms. And when they don't, like what's happened in Venezuela, and the Constitution has kind of melted away, it just comes down to the people that have got the weapons as the ones that can say who's in charge. It's the ones with the weapons that are saying Maduro is in charge, and if that changes, it's probably going to be the same generals who are the ones that determine that he's not.

michael barbaro

Does that start to look, Nick, like a military coup backed by the U.S. government?

nicholas casey

It does. Because you have the U.S. government supporting opposition parties that are supporting military intervention by their own military against the man who is running the government. Each of those links is there, and it would link the U.S. to what happens afterward. You just don't know. When you ask the armed forces to get involved, it's really up to them what happens next.

michael barbaro

So it could all go very badly. And then everybody who supported it would be implicated, including the U.S.

nicholas casey

Yeah, potentially.

michael barbaro

So what exactly is the military weighing right now, knowing that they hold all the power in this equation?

nicholas casey

So on one side, the military lives very well under Maduro. The top brass of the military live lavish lives. There's lots of forms of revenue, they have lots of control over the economy. Many top officers are involved in the drug trade, smuggling. Even though there's a big crisis in Venezuela, they're not living it at the top. On the other end, they're seeing that this institution, which had been beloved by Venezuelans, is getting increasingly tarnished for being on the side of Maduro. And they're also seeing that so much of the world is now getting behind Guaidó, and wondering, probably, whether Maduro is going to be around forever, and what they're going to do after Maduro is gone themselves. So this is kind of the dilemma that they're facing. Whose side did they get on? Which side do they think is going to be right in history?

michael barbaro

And Nick, given how much time you have spent on the ground in Venezuela, I wonder if you have an instinct for which of these will weigh more on the military, and how it will go.

nicholas casey

Well, I can't say how long it's going to take, but I think that these military officers and rank and file people are looking out their windows every morning. And they're seeing that the crowds are angry, and that they're getting bigger, and that they need to do something about these crowds. And they need to get on the side of them, as opposed to the side of the single person who's running the country. But I have no idea how they're going to make that decision or when.

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A remarkable battle for power is playing out in Venezuela, with dueling claims to the presidency. We look at what's happening in the country and why the situation is coming to a head.

Image

A defaced mural of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in Caracas, the capital. Credit... Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Video

The 35-year-old opposition leader Juan Guaidó just swore himself in as Venezuela's interim president. Who is he? Credit Credit... Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

Nicholas Casey contributed reporting.

"One Country, Two Presidents: The Crisis in Venezuela" was produced by Lynsea Garrison, Theo Balcomb and Paige Cowett, with help from Andy Mills, and edited by Lisa Tobin.

"The Daily" is produced by Theo Balcomb, Annie Brown, Jessica Cheung, Lynsea Garrison, Michael Simon Johnson, Andy Mills, Neena Pathak, Rachel Quester, Ike Sriskandarajah, Clare Toeniskoetter, Jonathan Wolfe and Alexandra Leigh Young, and edited by Larissa Anderson, Paige Cowett and Wendy Dorr. Lisa Tobin is our executive producer. Samantha Henig is our editorial director. Brad Fisher is our technical manager. Chris Wood is our sound engineer. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

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One Country, Two Presidents: The Crisis in Venezuela

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transcript As the once-prosperous nation faces economic and political collapse, the struggle over its leadership may hinge on the military. michael barbaro From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily." Today: A remarkable battle for power is playing out in Venezuela, with dueling claims to the presidency and talk of a coup.

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On a cold December day in 2007, José Luis Peñas received a phone call from the man he had recently betrayed. Francisco Correa, a powerful business magnate, was ringing to ask whether they could meet the following evening.

Peñas, a town councillor in a Madrid suburb, had worked with Correa for two years: they had started a political party together, to compete in local elections on an anti-corruption ticket. Peñas ran the campaign, Correa financed it. The pair were very different - Peñas was an affable bear of a man, while Correa, more than a decade older, was wiry and quick to anger - but they became close, talking almost every day, sharing confidences, dining with one another's families. Correa's young daughter even called Peñas Tio Pepe, Uncle Pepe.
Spain's Watergate: inside the corruption scandal that changed a nation - podcast
But within a few months, Peñas had realised that his friend was corrupt: Correa's real business was conspiring with local politicians to rig lucrative public contracts. Instead of confronting him - or turning him in - Peñas spent more than a year covertly gathering evidence against his boss.

Now, after amassing hours of secret tapes, Peñas had finally gone to the police to report Correa for a series of crimes that threatened to land his former partner in jail for a very long time - along with a powerful cabal of corrupt politicians and businessmen. But the investigation was still a secret: the police wanted to collect more evidence before arresting Correa, who still had no idea he was being taped.

When the phone rang, Peñas panicked. Had someone in the police tipped Correa off? After all, the businessman was impeccably well connected. In 2002, he had even been a witness at the wedding of the daughter of José María Aznar, then prime minister of Spain. Peñas pushed his fears out of his mind, said yes and hung up.

The next day, Peñas arrived at the office on Calle Serrano, Madrid's most exclusive street, at about 5pm. One of Correa's men showed him into the dimly lit office and told him to wait in an empty conference room. Left alone, Peñas reached into his jacket pocket to turn on the dictaphone he had been using to record Correa and his top lieutenants for the past 18 months. As he waited, he tapped the table anxiously and walked over to the window to stare at the pouring rain outside. He received a message on his phone: Correa was running late. Peñas wondered whether Correa had gone somewhere public so that he would have an alibi for what might follow. He imagined a large man coming in, opening the window and hurling him off the fourth floor balcony.

After more than an hour, Correa arrived. What Peñas would record that evening would become the key piece of evidence in the most far-reaching corruption scandal in Spain's modern democratic history. The case would help shatter the nation's two-party system, transform how the public viewed the people running the country and, eventually, bring down a government. Originally centred on illegal dealings between small city councils and Correa's network of businesses, the investigation eventually swept up hundreds of suspects in its net. Investigators named the case " Gürtel " - a German word for "belt" - after Correa himself, whose surname means "belt" in Spanish. "Gürtel is Spain's Watergate," said Peñas' lawyer, Ángel Galindo, last year.

In the 12 years since Peñas began recording, Spanish voters' confidence in their government has collapsed. When the financial crisis struck, ordinary Spaniards emerged from the boom years to find that their mortgages were unpayable, their jobs had disappeared and social services were being cut. They realised they had been conned - not by criminal masterminds, but by an old boys' network of greedy politicians and opportunists who had systematically rigged public tenders, inflated costs for necessary works and pocketed the difference.

The effects of the Gürtel case - and a string of other scandals that have come to light over the past decade - are still shaking Spanish society. In 2015, spurred on by anger at political sleaze, coalitions backed by the leftwing populist party Podemos won mayoral seats across the country. Later that year, in general elections, Podemos and centre-right Ciudadanos dealt a definitive blow to the two-party system as, for the first time since the return of democracy, the vote was split between four major parties. But while anger over Gürtel has ended complacency over corruption, it also destroyed trust in public institutions and helped open the way for the return of the far right. In regional elections last year, a relatively new party named Vox campaigned on a hardline anti-immigration, anti-feminism platform, pitching itself as the only force capable of standing up to self-serving political elites. In December, it became the first far-right party to win seats in Spain in almost 40 years.

fter his downfall, many Spaniards would come to see Correa as the embodiment of the venal culture that had made the country rich in the 1990s and 2000s, only to leave it on the brink of collapse soon after. He was ambitious, reckless and flashy. But when Peñas first encountered him, almost two decades earlier, those same qualities had a certain attraction. Correa was thrillingly confident and successful. "His name was synonymous with business," Peñas told me. "He was the guy who pulled the strings."

The two met in 2001, when Peñas was a junior member of the People's party (PP), the conservative party founded by one of Franco's former ministers in 1989, which had become the default home for rightwing Spanish voters. Peñas, then a councillor in Majadahonda, a commuter town just outside Madrid, was getting married. The local mayor, Guillermo Ortega, told him it would be good for his career to invite Correa - Ortega's key backer - so he did. As a wedding present, Correa gave the couple a week's holiday in Mauritius. They had never met before.

Over the next few years, Peñas and Correa saw little of each other but in 2005, that all changed. In February, Ortega resigned as mayor, officially citing health reasons, amid media reports of a falling out with PP leadership over his handling of an important land deal. A few months later, Peñas and another local PP politician publicly alleged that the same land deal was a scheme to defraud taxpayers. The case was investigated by anti-corruption prosecutors but later dropped when they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Peñas and his colleague, meanwhile, were expelled from the PP - in retaliation, they claim, for their attempts to report corruption. (The PP declined requests to comment on why Peñas was expelled, or any other aspect of the Gürtel case.) Peñas found himself politically homeless, while the loss of a key ally had left Correa fearing that he would be frozen out of lucrative business opportunities in Majadahonda. When Correa offered to back a new party run by Peñas, it seemed like the perfect solution.

Initially, Peñas says, Correa's status and connections - he remained close to other senior PP figures even after the Majadahonda feud - made it impossible for him to consider that his financial backer was also corrupt. Peñas had seen signs of corruption before among colleagues, he said, but in late 2005, after overhearing Correa discuss a bribe so blatant he couldn't ignore it, he was forced to make a decision.

That night Peñas couldn't sleep. Lying in bed, he ran over his options. He could go to the police, but who would believe him? Correa knew everyone. And Peñas had been burned before after reporting alleged corruption. He knew he needed hard evidence. He had to get Correa on tape.

Peñas kept working on the new political party with Correa, but from early 2006 he began recording his friends and colleagues, hiding his voice recorder inside a folder he would place on the desk, or keeping it in his jacket pocket. "I was so scared. I feared that one day the recorder would start playing," Peñas said. "I'm no spy." Many hours of tape were inaudible and had to be discarded. "What really drove me was seeing that it was the People's party itself that was driving this," Peñas told me. "Correa was just an individual but the People's party protected dozens like him."

Correa did not have the background of a typical PP ally, but he spent a lifetime learning how to ingratiate himself with Madrid's conservative elite. He was born in 1955 in Casablanca, where his republican father José had fled in the 1930s after the Spanish civil war. The family enjoyed a comfortable upper-middle-class life, until political unrest in the newly independent Morocco forced them to leave. Returning to Madrid with almost nothing, the family had to begin again from scratch.

As a teenager, Correa began working as a bellboy in a hotel in central Madrid. Driven and diligent, he worked his way up and built a promising career in a travel agency in his 20s before starting his own travel and events companies and investing in real estate. He wanted to succeed where he thought his father had failed, says Maria Antonia Puerto, Correa's first wife. "He always put power and ambition above all else," she told me.

In the mid-90s, after being introduced by mutual associates, Correa began organising holidays for senior members of the PP, establishing himself as a successful legitimate contractor. Years in the high-end travel industry had taught him how to cater to the rich and powerful, and by the end of the decade, Correa had progressed to organising campaign events for the party, later earning a reputation for staging flamboyant rallies in bullrings with elaborate firework displays.

But Correa was not satisfied. Spain was booming and everyone knew the real money was in construction and lucrative public-private contracts. In a cluster of wealthy towns on the outskirts of Madrid, all traditionally controlled by the PP, Correa found a foothold where he could begin conspiring with local officials to rig certain contracts in his favour. Together they would inflate the price of a contract - building works, street cleaning, public information campaigns - award it to a company Correa controlled and make sure that everyone who mattered got a cut. A smooth talker, Correa was adept at " sobremesa " politics - informal "over dinner" business dealings - and began searching for more and more mayors who, in exchange for kickbacks, he could co-opt into the scheme.

In time, Correa would build around him a revolving team of advisers: accountants, some of whom logged the steady stream of bribes and kickbacks; lawyers to construct elaborate offshore company structures that were used to hide money; charismatic dealmakers who solicited new marks for business and expanded operations beyond Madrid. His number two, Pablo Crespo, a former senior member of the PP in Galicia, helped cement Correa's connection to the party that became his most important client.

Dressed in designer suits, his hair slicked back, Correa had the air of a Wall Street banker attending a costume party as Al Capone. "He would pick up your bill, lavish you with expensive gifts," David Fernández, a journalist who wrote a book about the Gürtel case, told me. "For many politicians who were easily corrupted this was incredibly attractive, and Correa knew how to exploit this. He had this gift for that old way of doing things in Spain." Mayors and their families received holidays through Correa's travel company, or gifts of designer watches or sports cars. Over expensive dinners in Madrid's elite Salamanca neighbourhood, Peñas said, Correa would order wine but leave it untouched to retain a clear head. While his guests, politicians in charge of vast budgets, drank or chased women, Correa patiently watched for their weak spot. "With his ambition, nothing could stop him. If he saw the possibility of a deal, he went for it," Arturo González Panero, former mayor of Boadilla del Monte, a wealthy town 10 miles west of Madrid, told me. Correa was "completely unabashed, unscrupulous".

If bribery didn't work, he turned to blackmail. When Panero refused to cooperate, he claims that Correa threatened to end his career. Planning how to respond to the mayor, Correa allegedly brainstormed ideas with his right-hand man Crespo, who took notes on a pad of lined paper that was later seized from his office. "We don't want to fuck up your life," read point one of 23. "He [Correa] has treated you like a brother and you've treated him like a dog." If Panero didn't come around, the note continued, they would release a videotape of him, surrounded by piles of cash, taking a bribe. (Panero, who denies any wrongdoing, is currently awaiting trial in a further part of the sprawling case. He denies taking a bribe or any knowledge of the videotape. No such videotape was found during the investigation.)

There were other pressures to get in line, Panero told me recently. Only 33 years old when he became mayor, Panero said the hierarchical culture of the PP meant it was difficult to push back when the party asked you to work with Correa or another favoured businessman. Panero alleges that Luis Bárcenas, then chief administrator of the party and later treasurer, ordered him to award contracts to specific companies. He claims to have refused to follow these orders, but speculates that others in his position could have been swayed by this kind of pressure. "It's not just the temptation of being offered 100m pesetas (£513,000) for a contract," Panero said. "It's also the pressure of the treasurer of the party, a national leader calling you and telling you it's what the party needs."

orrea, and others like him, thrived because, until recently, corruption was not seen as a major issue. After almost 40 years of dictatorship, Spain welcomed democracy in the late 1970s, and from the mid-1980s support for the political system was consistently high. Corruption was a problem, of course, but it was not a priority. In the early 1990s, long before the Gürtel case, the Socialist party - traditionally the other major force in Spanish politics besides the PP - was itself implicated in a string of financial and political scandals. But partly because there were few political alternatives for voters angry at corruption, the two major parties had little incentive to clean up their act.

Besides, most people had other things on their minds, not least the prospect of making money. In the housing boom that lasted from the mid-1990s to 2007, Spain built more homes than France, Germany and the UK combined. And it wasn't just housing. Towns with populations of tens of thousands built airports, while new roads and high-speed rail lines spread like spiderwebs across the country. And with each development came the opportunity for unscrupulous politicians and businessmen like Correa to rig contracts. Today, many of these dodgy housing developments and infrastructure projects stand abandoned, ruins of an age of excess. Trying to wean Spain off building, quipped one economist following the crash, was like quitting hard drugs.

Last summer, Peñas drove me around Majadahonda, the wealthy Madrid suburb that had once been the epicentre of Correa's business. "It's a museum of corruption," he said, pointing out developments linked to Gürtel and other graft cases. Luxury housing developments and their accompanying garden oases crisscrossed the otherwise parched land wilting in the heat. Spanish flags hung on balconies of large apartments. The parks and streets were named after members of Spain's royal family.

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Construction in Madrid. Photograph: Pablo Blázquez Domínguez/Getty Images

In the recordings he made, Peñas sounds relaxed, his gruff voice often breaking out into a chesty laugh. But, he said, the stress of his double life was frequently unbearable. More than once he thought he was being followed. Once, when he was driving to meet Correa, he had a panic attack and had to pull over to regain his composure.

Throughout the time he was secretly making the tapes, only three people knew what Peñas was up to: his wife, one sympathetic colleague and a prominent local anti-corruption activist, Ángel Galindo, who became his lawyer. Peñas decided to tell Galindo around a year into the time he began recording. "I want to tell someone because I'm scared that I'm going to turn up floating in a river one day and that will be the end of it," he told him.

To demonstrate what was at stake, he played Galindo one of his recordings. On the tape, Correa could be heard talking about Galindo, discussing how to persuade him to give up his campaign against an allegedly corrupt deal. The recording stunned Galindo. "I had to get out of the room to get some air. It gave me a pain in my chest," he told me. Once he regained composure, he played the recording again, and again, until he had listened to it more than a dozen times. "It was like lifting the blindfold and being confronted with reality. How things really work."

In May 2007, the fledgling party that Peñas and Correa had formed suffered a humiliating defeat in local elections, winning only 183 votes. After that, the pair lost contact. As Correa moved on to other ventures, Peñas and Galindo were busy transcribing the interviews and preparing the complaint they would take to the the police. Finally, on 6 November 2007, they went to the offices of the financial crimes unit of the Spanish police and handed them a CD containing almost 18 hours of recordings, transcriptions and a list of 30 names of people involved. Over several hours, Peñas told the officers his story while they took detailed notes.

It was the following month that, out of the blue, Peñas received the call from Correa. Before Peñas drove to the meeting, he told Galindo, who made sure the police knew about it. In the office on Calle Serrano on 12 December 2007, Peñas turned the recorder on and waited. When Correa eventually arrived, with his right-hand man Crespo in tow, Peñas relaxed. Their confident tone reassured him they had no idea he had been to the police.

After discussing business for an hour, Peñas and Correa moved next door to the Hotel Meliá Fénix. It was the same hotel where Peñas had first decided to begin recording his boss, and it belonged to the same chain as the hotel where Correa had, all those years ago, begun his career as a bellboy. Decorated with red carpets and gold furnishings, the building oozed the kind of ostentatious wealth that Correa adored.

That evening, as a police unit outside watched the hotel, Correa unburdened himself. A few nights earlier he had met with one of his longtime contacts at the PP, chief administrator of the party Luis Bárcenas, the man who controlled the party's secret accounts. The meeting had not gone well. Correa and Bárcenas, despite working together for years, reportedly had a difficult relationship. Bárcenas, Correa complained to Peñas, was cutting him off from new contracts.

To draw Correa out, Peñas feigned ignorance about his friend's relationship with the powerful politician. Correa took the bait, telling him: "I, Paco Correa, [...] have given 1bn pesetas personally to Bárcenas." Not only that, he continued, but he knew where Bárcenas kept his money, and "how he gets it out of Spain and offshore".

"That's why they're so scared of you, man," Peñas responded, playing along. "You know everything."

"Yeah," said Correa. "But I'm not going to talk."

ver the next year, police continued to gather evidence on Correa and his associates. As they listened in to his calls, officers heard Correa oscillate between the confidence of a man accustomed to buying his way out of trouble and paranoia, as he grew increasingly suspicious that someone had snitched on him.

Shortly after 10am on 6 February 2009, police conducted simultaneous raids on almost 20 properties across Spain, arresting five people and seizing company records. During one raid, officers wrestled a black USB stick from the closed fist of Correa's accountant. On it, they found a spreadsheet that seemed to contain detailed accounting of all of the group's illicit earnings. Payments to politicians and businessmen appeared to have been dutifully logged.

The story was a political earthquake. Within days of the first raids, allegations of corruption, previously dismissed as an isolated problem, had hit senior PP officials across the country, throwing the party into chaos and provoking resignations. Dozens of suspects would be placed under investigation for a range of charges including bribing public officials, money laundering and belonging to a criminal organisation. Many of those arrested were respected public figures. One had even been vice-president of Spain's state oil giant Repsol, although he had left the company years before his arrest. (In 2018 he was sentenced to three years in prison for tax fraud.)

Six days after the raids, on 12 February 2009, the PP held a press conference to deny the party's involvement in any wrongdoing. In fact, they went much further, claiming to be victims of a leftwing conspiracy. The Gürtel case, they claimed, was an unprecedented partisan attack on the party, masterminded by the controversial judge Baltasar Garzón and ministers from the Socialist party, which was in power at the time. "This is not a PP plot," said Mariano Rajoy, who was then leader of the PP. "This is a plot against the People's party."

In the years after the investigation went public, the PP did everything possible to stymie its progress, bringing multiple complaints against prosecutors, police and judges involved in the case. "All of us, in one form or another, felt the breath of power on the back of our necks," Garzón told me.

Peñas felt the threat almost immediately. Within days of the arrests, and despite the investigation being sealed by court order, it was leaked that he was the whistleblower behind the recordings. In conservative Majadahonda there were many who viewed Peñas not as a whistleblower, but as a rat, an agent of a plot to bring down the PP. On the street, people sometimes harangued or spat at him. He began receiving threatening phone calls at home. In one incident later that year, Peñas told me, his wife, Raquel, was driving home with their two young children, when she was forced off the road by another vehicle, swerving into a ditch. The three passengers were terrified but unharmed. Around 2am the following morning, a man telephoned their home. Next time, the voice told Peñas, his wife would fall from a greater height. Peñas, mistrustful of the police, did not report the incident.

Other whistleblowers experienced similar harassment. "For me it's been like a horror film," said Ana Garrido, a former civil servant who reported allegations of corruption in commuter town Boadilla del Monte in 2009. Garrido has faced "death threats, being chased, sued [unsuccessfully by her former employer], blackmailed and having to quit my job".

With new, sordid details constantly seeping into the press, the Gürtel case spent years on the front pages. Newspapers reported how Correa would count envelopes of cash in full view at dinner, organise sex parties for politicians and spend so much time at a nearby brothel that they dubbed it "the office". The men who had allegedly conspired with Correa were often referred to not by their real names, but by the colourful pseudonyms that would come to define the case in the public imagination: The Rat, The Meatball, The Moustache, Luis the Bastard.

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Spain's Watergate: inside the corruption scandal that changed a nation

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The long read: The Gürtel case began with one Madrid mogul. Over the next decade, it grew into the biggest corruption investigation in Spain's recent history, sweeping up hundreds of corrupt politicians and businessmen - and shattering its political system. By Sam Edwards

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On April 17, 2019, former Peruvian president Alan García (1985-1990, 2006-2011) shot himself in the head to avoid facing preliminary detention over accusations related to the Odebrecht corruption scandal; he died a few hours later. García's suicide attracted worldwide attention; yet although the outcome of his case was uniquely shocking, he was certainly not the only Peruvian politician who was in trouble with the law at the time. By early 2019, almost all of Peru's former presidents were facing the immediate possibility of jail time due to corruption allegations from their time in office. Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was set to return to prison after the cancellation of his presidential pardon on October 3 of that year. Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) was being extradited from the United States on charges of accepting bribes from the Brazilian construction giant, Odebrecht. Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and his wife Nadine Heredia had just spent nine months in preventive detention over accusations of receiving campaign donations from Odebrecht. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) was forced to resign the presidency in March, and prevented from leaving the country due to earlier payments Odebrecht had made to his financial services firm while he was a government minister; a' few months later he would be subject to a judicial order of house arrest. Though not a former president, Keiko Fujimori, whose Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) party controls Congress, was sent to prison in late October to serve three years of preventative detention while she is investigated for money laundering in connection with her 2016 electoral campaign.

Accusations of corruption are nothing new in Peru; As historian Alfonso W. Quiroz has documented in his recent book Historia de la corrupción en el Perú, almost every government in the country's history has faced them. But not since 2000, when the meticulously documented bribes paid out by presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos led to the spectacular downfall of the neoliberal Fujimori regime, have we witnessed such a sustained and far-reaching anti-corruption campaign as that in Peru over the last few months.

The situation is no doubt an outcome of the Lava Jato and Odebrecht affairs in Brazil; yet, the political aftershocks have had different effects in Peru. As in Brazil, these investigations have been politicized, but perhaps less effectively. Early in the Odebrecht investigations, from 2016 through 2017, the media attempted to portray the scandals as primarily or exclusively affecting politicians they identified as situated on the Left of the political spectrum, such as Humala and former Lima mayor Susana Villarán, despite the fact that both had distanced themselves from the Left in recent years-in Humala's case, immediately after taking office.

Yet by 2018, the anti-corruption crusade had become seriously debilitating for the Right too, in particular for the fujimoristas, the conservative populists regarded as Peru's most powerful political bloc, which held total control of Congress. Alan García's Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, APRA) -a formerly revolutionary center-left party that had grown increasingly conservative and currently maintains a tacit alliance with fujimorismo -was also caught up in the growing scandal.

This shift resulted from a new corruption scandal that erupted in July 2018, when audio recordings released by investigative journalist Gustavo Gorriti's team, working in collaboration with an official investigation by Peruvian police, began to reveal an extensive network of undue influence, bribes, and other illicit dealings in Peru's judicial system. The release of an initial recording on July 7 magnified the impact of the news and quickly stir red up widespread indignation among the population. The tapes reveal Judge César Hinostroza appearing to agree to reduce or commute the sentence of a man who had been convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl. Though inaudible in the recording, the common and immediate assumption was that he had agreed to do so in exchange for money or other benefits.

A few days later, another recording was released of Walter Ríos, another judge close to Hinostroza, asking for a $10,000 bribe in exchange for a judicial appointment. These acts were the mere tip of the iceberg. Hinostroza and Ríos were identified as leaders of a judicial "gang" that police dubbed " Los Cuellos Blancos del Puerto " (The White Collars of the Harbor), a reference to their effective control over courts and judges in Callao, Peru's largest port city.

Almost immediately, the recordings became a problem for the fujimoristas, since Judge Hinostroza's close connection to them quickly leaked. In one of the recordings he actually mentioned a "Mrs. K" ( Señora K)-which was almost universally assumed to refer to Keiko Fujimori. The scandals similarly damaged the image of the APRA party, which was then electorally weak but known for its pervasive influence over the judiciary, a factor often cited as the reason for former president Alan García's ability to repeatedly avoid legal prosecution. In both cases, aprista and fujimorista leaders made their situation worse through clumsy attempts to defend the judges and sabotage both journalistic and police investigations, blaming them on the influence of the caviares -a term widely used in Peru to refer to the socially privileged sector of the Left-at a moment when popular indignation over corruption was at an all-time high. As the "White Collar" judges were arrested, lost power, influence, and were forced in some cases to resign-as occurred recently with Pedro Chávarry, Peru's Attorney General-other rival sectors of the judiciary that are more critical of APRA and the fujimoristas, rose to the fore.

For APRA, the result was the end of Alan García's ability to escape serious corruption charges over the last three decades, despite being frequently named in opinion polls as the most corrupt politician in Peru. For the fujimorista Popular Force party, the outcome has been a sudden reversal of fortune and a profound internal crisis. Since winning an absolute majority in Congress in the 2016 election-although coming up slightly short of the presidency-fujimorismo was regarded as a formidable political force, appearing to intimidate and even overpower President Kuczynski, finally forcing his resignation after his brief 20-month administration.

The 2018 "White Collar" judiciary scandal refocused attention on accusations of numerous illicit activities against fujimorista members of Congress, reinforcing the widespread belief that Keiko Fujimori's party had failed to break with the legacy of spectacular corruption that marred her father's government, and that the party's enormous electoral strength in 2011 and especially in 2016 was based at least partly on alliances with interest groups engaged in questionable and/or illegal activities, such as logging, gambling, informal gold mining, and even drug trafficking.

The collapse of the party's judicial support system opened high-profile investigations against Keiko Fujimori and her closest advisors, with prosecutor José Domingo Pérez and judge Richard Concepción Carhuancho-who doled out the preventative detention sentences-quickly becoming popular leaders of the anti-corruption struggle among broad sectors of the population. Carhuancho in particular was deemed the most popular public figure in the country, according to a November 2018 national poll from the Institute of Peruvian Studies. This shifting political climate led in turn to high-profile congressional resignations from the fujimorista bloc, strengthening interim president Martín Vizcarra and giving him an upper hand against his adversaries, something his elected predecessor Kuczynski never achieved.

These developments significantly weakened the only conservative party with a significant base of support among Peru's poor and popular sectors, alarming right-wing pundits and media figures who now complain about a "witch hunt." On the flip side, many sectors among the country's Left see the recent events as an opportunity to reset the political balance of forces in the country. For example, Verónika Mendoza, the left-wing candidate who came close to advancing to the second round in the 2016 elections, has sought to emphasize the links between corruption, neoliberalism, and business interests, and to continue to position herself as a candidate in 2021. Certainly, she is hampered not only by the ever-present internal divisions that characterize the Peruvian left, but also because her party is not on the ballot, which means she will have to depend on alliances with other groups. Still, the ongoing prosecutions and investigations have weakened important sectors of the conservative establishment in Peru, and opened up a tentative potential space for the Left to gain support in the 2021 elections.

To read the rest of this article and other content from this issue, click here.
César R. Nureña is an anthropologist from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM, Peru). He holds a Master's degree in Sociology from the Universidad Iberoamericana of Mexico City and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Social Sciences at UNMSM. His dissertation focuses on forms of social exclusion associated with the Peruvian argolla. He has conducted research and published books and articles on politics, culture, public health, sexuality, and other issues since 2008. Federico Helfgott is Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and part-time faculty at the Department of Humanities of Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from the University of Michigan. His research concerns issues of labor, political economy, peasant communities, extractive industries, and social history.

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On April 17, 2019, former Peruvian president Alan García (1985-1990, 2006-2011) shot himself in the head to avoid facing preliminary detention over accusations related to the Odebrecht corruption scandal; he died a few hours later.

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Those who did vote overwhelmingly backed the bill - each proposal received almost 100 percent approval. Just under 11.7 million Colombians turned out, falling short of the 12.1 million votes that had been required to make it binding.

"It feels bad to lose, with the result so close," said 34-year-old graphic designer Isabel Meija, who voted in favor of the measures.

Corruption is rife in Colombia, costing the country an estimated $14 billion a year. Fresh legislation to tackle the problem and the launch of a special anti-graft unit have made little impact.

A number of recent high-profile corruption scandals, including the arrest in June of Colombia's own corruption tsar on bribery charges, has laid bare the gravity of a problem that President Iván Duque has dubbed a "cancer."

Duque, who took office earlier this month, has repeatedly promised to tackle government graft and had encouraged voters to participate in Sunday's referendum.

Outside a polling station on Sunday morning in Medellín, Colombia's second largest city, voters in favor of the proposals were strong on the ground.

"I think the referendum is so important, they have to show us where all this money is going, and how they're spending it, because in truth, they are stealing so much," said 25-year-old nursing assistant Deborah Mosquera.

Although most of the major political parties had backed the bill, little effort was made to promote it, while mainstream media coverage was minimal. None of Colombia's main terrestrial TV channels covered the results as they broke on Sunday afternoon.

Fake news attempted to sway voters, with claims that approval would lead to a cut in the minimum salary and that Green Alliance member Claudia López, who spearheaded the referendum campaign, would receive money in return for every "yes" vote.

In a last ditch effort to galvanize voters, Green Alliance members, led by López, had released a parody reggaeton video, notching over two million views.

In a café close to the polling station, Nataly Sarmiento, 22, told NBC News that nothing could convince her to cast her ballot. "I don't think my vote will make any difference right now," she said. "We know nothing is going to change."

Despite Sunday's result, Colombians may be surprised that a citizen-backed referendum attracted over 11 million votes in a country with one of the highest abstention rates in the region.

Proponents claim the vote was proof that Colombians are sick of the behavior of some of their elected officials, who should be held to greater account for their actions.

"The fact that it got more votes than the sitting president indicates that many don't want politics to continue as usual, and see the political system in need of reforms," said Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, a rights advocate at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Mauricio Londoño Gallego, 49, a social communicator from Medellín, was upbeat about the future of political participation in Colombia.

"This referendum will serve as a model for the future," he said.
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Colombians spurned the chance to curb rampant corruption. Here's why.

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Those who did vote overwhelmingly backed the bill - each proposal received almost 100 percent approval. Just under 11.7 million Colombians turned out, falling short of the 12.1 million votes that had been required to make it binding. "It feels bad to lose, with the result so close," said 34-year-old graphic designer Isabel Meija, who voted in favor of the measures.

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The principal responsibility for environmental matters is vested in the environmental programs department in the Ministry of Health and in the National Planning Office, as well as in the ecological advisory office in the Ministry of National Welfare and the department of the environment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Chile's main environmental problems are deforestation and the resulting soil erosion, and the pollution of its air, water, and land. Air pollution from industry and transportation and water pollution are especially acute in urban centers, where the population has doubled in the last 30 years. In 1996, Chile's industrial carbon dioxide emissions totaled 48.7 million metric tons. Untreated sewage poses the major threat to the nation's water quality. As of 2001, Chile had 928 cu km of renewable water resources. While 99% of its urban dwellers have pure drinking water, only 58% of its rural dwellers have the same access.

Endangered species in Chile include the South Andean huemul, tundra peregrine falcon, puna rhea, Chilean woodstar, ruddy-headed goose, and green sea turtle. As of the 2001, 16 species of mammals in a total of 91 were considered endangered. Of 296 breeding bird species, 18 were threatened with extinction. Also threatened were four types of freshwater fish and 268 plant species.

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The principal responsibility for environmental matters is vested in the environmental programs department in the Ministry of Health and in the National Planning Office, as well as in the ecological advisory office in the Ministry of National Welfare and the department of the environment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Does the UK Have a Sustainable Future?

This interview explores the intersection of policy, innovation, and commercialization within the UK's cleantech sector, with a focus on the initiatives and strategies being pursued by Cleantech for UK under Sarah Mackintosh's leadership.

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Spain: Environmental Issues, Policies, and Clean Technology

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Spain is a European country that borders the Mediterranean Sea, Bay of Biscay and North Atlantic Ocean. The countryis the fourth largest in Europe and the second largest in the European Union.

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Deforestation caused by illegal mining in Madre de Dios, a region of southeastern Peru, shown in an image from May. Credit... Cris Bouroncle/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Three years of relative peace with rebels in Colombia has opened once-forbidding jungles to settlers. Illegal gold mining is fueling forest loss in Peru. Cattle ranchers in Bolivia are razing rainforest to meet beef demand in China.

Deforestation at breakneck rates is depleting vast expanses of Amazon forest contained in South American countries neighboring Brazil. Forest loss in those nations, which host roughly 40 percent of the Amazon, underscores how the fires now ravaging parts of Brazil and provoking global alarm are just one piece of a broader regional crisis.

The push by land speculators, ranchers and miners into forests around the Amazon basin also shows how advances in political stability and economic integration can drive deforestation, especially when safeguards remain weak.

"We've gone in Colombia from gunpoint conservation under the guerrillas to a massive deforestation spike," said Liliana Dávalos, a field biologist at Stony Brook University who estimated that deforestation climbed 50 percent from 2017 to 2018 in Colombian national parks formerly controlled by armed rebels.

Fears of renewed fighting in Colombia flared this week, when a former commander of the country's largest rebel group said the government had reneged on the terms of a 2016 peace deal. The commander, who played an important part in peace talks, issued a new call to arms that could threaten the deal.

The potential for the guerrillas to regroup is one factor that environmental leaders are analyzing in Colombia, where decades of internal war had kept some forested areas off limits to settlement.

For now Colombia is emblematic of rising deforestation in South America. Its loss of about 490,000 acres last year was one of the highest annual rates Colombia had ever seen, government statistics show. Land grabs and crop cultivation for illegal drugs are among the factors driving deforestation.

But scientists say the deforestation was primarily set off by demobilization of the main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, as a result of the 2016 peace deal.

Before the agreement was reached, the FARC strictly enforced limits on fires used to clear lands under the group's control. The rebels maintained the forest cover to protect encampments from aerial bombing and drone surveillance.

With that motivation gone, members of illegal armed groups and some former FARC guerrillas themselves are racing to occupy lands by clearing forest, according to a report by the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group.
[Colombia's peace deal promised a new era after 50 years of war. Now, rebels are rearming.]
Land speculation is fueling much of the rush in Colombia, with developers benefiting from an incomplete land registry, shadowy methods for obtaining land titles and low taxes on cleared land.

"Part of the deforestation problem is that the state doesn't respond fast enough," said Humberto Sánchez, mayor of San Vicente del Caguán, a onetime haven for the FARC in southern Colombia that is now surrounded by deforestation areas.

"Military and judicial authorities delay taking action, then comes the enforcement," Mr. Sánchez continued. "But by that time, the damage is done."

Colombia's government contends that it has taken steps to curb some of the forest loss: expanding Chiribiquete, a large national park; forging greater cooperation between indigenous peoples and the National Park Service; and deploying army units to crack down on illegal clearing.

Colombia's meteorological institute said that the deforestation rate, while high, actually slowed slightly last year compared with 2017. Still, the rate was 59 percent higher in 2018 than 2015, the year before the FARC demobilized.

Some of Colombia's recent measures to preserve the Amazon drew inspiration from Brazil, which pioneered developing-world strategies to protect tropical forests and reduced deforestation rates by about 80 percent from 2004 to 2012.

The relaxation of protections in 2012 under the leftist Workers' Party led deforestation to climb again in Brazil. During the tenure of President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing nationalist whose foreign minister says climate change is a Marxist plot, forest protection agencies have been gutted.

Mr. Bolsonaro's aggressive weakening of forest protections seems to be influencing officials in neighboring countries, just as Brazil's previous leadership on the environment did. The governor of one Colombian province where deforestation has skyrocketed, for instance, has called for cattle raising to more than double.

President Ivan Duque of Colombia and President Martín Vizcarra of Peru are organizing a summit meeting next week of the leaders of Amazon nations to coordinate protection strategies. It was unclear whether Brazil would participate in the meeting, to be held in the Colombian city of Leticia.

Venezuela, which has endured a severe economic crisis, has a relatively low deforestation rate compared with other countries sharing the Amazon forest. "Deforestation levels dropped the past two years, but could be in danger of rebounding amid Venezuela's instability," said Matt Piotrowski, a senior analyst at Climate Advisers, a Washington policy group.

In Peru, where the Amazon constitutes about 60 percent of the country's territory, political tensions over forest protections have been intensifying.

The government curbed the independence of Peru's forestry auditor in December, drawing accusations that it was violating commitments made in a 2007 trade deal with the United States. The move prompted a rare threat of sanctions by the Trump administration over environmental degradation.

In April, Peru reversed course and restored the forestry agency's independence. Still, the country is grappling with deforestation driven by a growth in the production of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, and illegal gold mining.

The spread of small-scale mines in Peru has destroyed about 170,000 acres in just five years, according to a 2018 study by researchers from Wake Forest University.

Responding to deforestation in the Peruvian region of Madre de Dios, President Vizcarra declared a state of emergency in the region in February and deployed 1,500 police officers and soldiers to crack down on illegal mines.

Luis Hidalgo, the governor of Madre de Dios, said in a telephone interview that his government was also struggling to respond to fires now burning in remote parts of the region.

"We are not prepared to respond to a fire of great magnitude," he said, emphasizing that the entire province had only one firefighting unit, and it was based in the capital, Puerto Maldonado.

Mr. Hidalgo added that the fires in his region involved internal migration driven by economics: Settlers from the highlands had moved to lowlands for greater opportunities and, once there, had set fires to plant crops on small plots of land.

Environmental leaders in Peru are also bracing for the effects of the Interoceanic Highway. The project, intended to foster greater trade between Peru and Brazil, is already fueling forest loss in adjacent areas now open to farming.

Agriculture and ranching are also producing a surge in deforestation in Bolivia, where President Evo Morales has made expanding the country's agricultural frontier a priority, sometimes by distributing land to farmers.

The opening of China's beef market to Bolivian exporters is thought to be driving some of the forest loss this year as ranchers seek pastures for expanding herds. After trying to play down fires in the Amazon, Mr. Morales shifted his position last weekend and sent soldiers to fight them.

And on Tuesday Mr. Morales said his government had suspended land sales in Chiquitania, the region hit by fires this month. Still, the blazes provided an opening to political rivals and environmental groups critical of Mr. Morales.

"Let's be clear: This is no natural disaster," said Carlos Mesa, a leading opposition candidate who is running for president against Mr. Morales. "These fires were caused by Evo Morales and his policies."

Researchers are just beginning to reckon with the consequences of this year's fires. From January through July, deforestation and subsequent fires in the Brazilian Amazon released between 115 and 155 million tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions, according to an analysis released Friday.

The amount is roughly equal to the total annual carbon dioxide emissions for the state of North Carolina, according to Wayne Walker, an associate scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, who led the analysis. In the Brazilian Amazon alone from Jan. 1 through Aug. 14, people have deforested an area almost equal to the size of Rhode Island, the research center said.

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Where Is the Amazon Rainforest Vanishing? Not Just in Brazil

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Three years of relative peace with rebels in Colombia has opened once-forbidding jungles to settlers. Illegal gold mining is fueling forest loss in Peru. Cattle ranchers in Bolivia are razing rainforest to meet beef demand in China. Deforestation at breakneck rates is depleting vast expanses of Amazon forest contained in South American countries neighboring Brazil.

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Colombia's main environmental problems are soil erosion, deforestation and the preservation of its wildlife. Soil erosion has resulted from the loss of vegetation and heavy rainfall, and the soil has also been damaged by overuse of pesticides. Deforestation has resulted from the commercial exploitation of the country's forests which cover approximately 45% of the country. Approximately 908,000 hectares (2,244,000 acres) of natural forest were lost annually in the 1970s to farming, erosion, and the lumber industry, but only 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) were reforested each year; between 1981 and 1985, 820,000 hectares (2,260,000 acres) were lost each year, and 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) were reforested. Between 1983 and 1993, Colombia lost another 5.8% of its forest and woodland. By the mid-1990s, Colombia had the tenth-largest area of mangrove swamps in the world, covering under half a million ha (1,235,500 acres). The nation ranked forty-third globally in industrial carbon dioxide emissions in the early 1990s, with a total of 61.5 million metric tons. In 1996, total emissions were at 63.3 million metric tons. Air pollution from vehicle emissions is also a problem, especially in Bogota. Safe drinking water is available to 99% of urban dwellers and 70% of the rural population.

The Colombian government has initiated several programs to protect the environment. By 1959, the Amazon forests, the Andean area and the Pacific coast were protected. In 1973, the government created the National Resources and Environment Code. The main environmental agency is the Institute for Development of Renewable Natural Resources and the Environment (INDERENA), established in 1969. Among other activities, it has undertaken extensive projects in the training of personnel in conservation, fishing, and forestry. The Colombian Sanitary Code, in force since January 1982, establishes pollution control standards. The National Environmental Education Plan for 1991-94 introduces environmental issues in the elementary schools.

Endangered species in Colombia include the tundra peregrine falcon, Cauca guan, gorgeted wood-quail, red siskin, pinche, five species of turtle (green sea, hawksbill, olive ridley, leatherback, and arrau), two species of alligator (spectacled caiman and black caiman), and two of crocodile (American and Orinoco). By 2001, 35 of Colombia's 359 species of mammals, 64 in a total of 1,770 breeding bird species, 15 reptile species in a total of 356, and 429 of 51,000 plant species were endangered. The Colombian grebe and the Caribbean monk seal have become extinct.

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Colombia's main environmental problems are soil erosion, deforestation and the preservation of its wildlife. Soil erosion has resulted from the loss of vegetation and heavy rainfall, and the soil has also been damaged by overuse of pesticides. Deforestation has resulted from the commercial exploitation of the country's forests which cover approximately 45% of the country.

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Venezuela: can a failing state protect its environment and its people?

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As Venezuela sinks into chaos and violence, Pres. Maduro rushes to salvage its sinking economy by selling off the nation's natural legacy in the Orinoco Mining Arc - analysis.

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The 4 main environmental problems in Spain

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The 4 main environmental problems in Spain Pilar Ramos Hernández

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This page will briefly describe some of the most important environmental challenges that face Peru (and other Latin American countries.) It is divided into several specific topics. Please click on the link to view information about a specific topic. Remember that the ecosystem of any country or the entire planet is interconnected and your impact as a tourists has an effect on the local environment- see the brief description of ecotourism. It is difficult to "solve" any environmental problem unless the many complex interconnections are clear. The final section on Globalization tries to take a wider view. The section on What You Can Do tries to make some suggestions for individual action on the part of dwellers in the developed world. The section on Peruvian Environmental and Cultural Organizations lists some efforts being made by groups in Peru.

Key environmental issues in Peru include: deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, air pollution in urban centers, pollution of rivers and coastal waters from municipal and mining wastes, depletion of fisheries as a result of overfishing. An increasing environmental movement and movements to preserve indigenous people's culture and rights now exist in Peru. Please see the list at the end of this page for information about these Peruvian organizations. Finally, the new government of Peru, headed by president Alejandro Toledo, has offered rhetorical promises to respect the rights of native people's and preserve Peru's priceless environmental and cultural heritage. However, Toledo's government faces numerous challenges and it remains to be seen if he will be able to follow through with his campaign slogan of "Mas trabajo" and simultaneously preserve Peru from overdevelopment.

The Amazon river's origins are in Peru and its rainforests are home to some of the most important and diverse habitats on the planet. Peru's forests are under threat from a variety of sources including deforestation, logging, oil exploration, chemical spraying to eradicate coca production, and internal migration and farming. The country's past leaders have emphasized resource extraction to the detriment of Peru's once pristine rainforest environments. Habitat destruction includes the loss of land and culture by indigenous rainforest peoples. For more information about rainforest destruction in Peru, please see the World Rainforest Information Portal on Peru. I would like to focus on one issue regarding rainforest destruction that we were able to hear about and see on our trip: Mining.

Mining provides Peru with needed income; however, the lack of enforcement of regulations or the lack of adequate regulations has resulted in high levels of pollution from the mining of gold, silver, and other metals and oil exploration and extraction. Peru is attempting to deal with the problems and there has been a recent growth in non-governmental environmental groups in Peru.

Some of the mining operations are run by major multi national corporations (see these materials on Shell and the Colorado-based American mining company, Newmont Mining Corporation.) Some of the operations are run by small operators or even individual families. In either case, regulation and enforcement of regulations can be difficult. Large scale mining often involves the deposits of tailings and the use of checmicals which subsequently pollute the watersheds. It often uses deadly chemicals such as cyanide or mercury which are subsequently thrown away resulting in severe chemical pollution. The building of roads into undeveloped areas brings deforestation and other associated problems. Our guide in our time in the Amazon noted that local small scale gold mining in the Madre de Dios region has resulted in extensive mercury pollution. Agencies make equipment available to help to safely dispose of mercury used in gold extraction, but getting people to use it is another matter.

While logging is an important source of rainforest destruction, cocoa production for the American cocaine market also contributes to both deforestation and chemical pollution. This article from the Trade and Environment Database at American University provides an excellent overview of the environmental problems inherent in cocaine production. Agricultural development also threatens rainforests in Peru as well as world wide. In addition to illegal plants, once roads are built for logging, soon agricultural production moves in. Huge areas of the Amazon basin have been cleared for plantations to grow sugar, bananas, and other export crops. Cattle ranching to feed the north American fast food industry has destroyed substantial portions of original forests. For some general information see this PBS report on Science in the Rainforest.

"If deforestation continues at current rates, scientists estimate nearly 80 to 90 percent of tropical rainforest ecosystems will be destroyed by the year 2020." - Rainforest Action Network

In 1997, almost 140,000 Americans visited Peru. This is about a quarter of its total international tourists. Many of these visitors are attracted to Peru's diverse natural environment as well as its archeological treasures. In recent years a growing number of tour operators offer "eco tours" to various regions of Peru. There is a lack of consensus on exactly what ecotourism is. In general the assumption is that the tourist will have a low or negligible impact on the local environment. Needless to say, this is often not the case. In fact any tourism impacts the environment, no matter how responsible and careful its participants attempt to be. In addition, simply because a travel organization says it is eco-friendly does not mean it has strong sustainable practices.

Responsible organizations have approached ecologically sensitive travel with three broad issues in mind: conservation, community interaction, and sustainability, including profit. An excellent set of guidelines can be found at this Sierra Club site.

Tourism may be seen as a two edged sword; one side offers the sharp incentive to preserve environment and thus support local communities. The other has a sharper edge in that every step you take in a sensitive fragile area destroys some life; has some impact. There's a saying that has been overused, but seems applicable here: tread lightly on the earth. As responsible travelers tourists need to make sure that the tour operators we deal with ascribe to and practice the above principles. I certainly found that to be the case with the operators we dealt with on our trip. Rainforest Expeditions and its work with the Eseeja native community in the Amazon is an example.

You might wonder what the humble potato has to do with environmental problems. This section will briefly mention the issue of declining biodiversity. The potato was domesticated in Peru and has been under cultivation there for over 8,000 years. The farmers of Peru, primarily in the Andes, cultivate over 200 different species of potatoes. This is a far cry from the few varieties commonly found in U.S. supermarkets. (Indeed, the Irish Potato Famine is attributed to the lack of genetic diversity - one variety of potato subject to blight dooms the entire crop.) For the farmers of the Andes, their ability to manage and cultivate such a wide range of genetic diversity in one of their major food crops has enabled them to survive difficult conditions for centuries. For example, the Aymara peoples of the Lake Titicaca region developed methods for dehydrating and storing the over 200 varieties of potatoes they cultivate; the dried potato is called chuo. We saw this process underway during our stay on Amantani island.

Scientists have noted that declining diverity and a rise in transgenetic and genetically modified crops which are patented and controlled by multinational corporations (such as Monsanto) can result in the loss of genetic diversity neceessary to maintain healthy food crops. Many non-governmental organizations and scientific groups are attempting to preserve genetic diversity; thus providing a genetic potato (and other crops)"bank." Other organizations also try to preserve the ability of indigenous people's to control their own food production without reliance on patented seeds, chemical chemical fertilizers, and pesticides.

One example in Peru is the International Potato Center. Centro Nacional de la Papa maintains 3,527 accessions of cultivated potatoes collected from throughout the Andes This is a gene bank to protect against the rapidly declining genetic diversity of potatoes. CIP headquarters are in La Molina, outside of Lima and their website is at CIPotato.org. You can also read more about the preservation of biodiversity at Future Harvest and the Indigenous People's Biodiversity Information Network

Many of the issues mentioned on this page can be put under a broad general category dealing with the impact of globalization on developing countries such as Peru. What is globalization? The world's political leaders, especially those of the G8- the eight wealthiest developed ccountries, and world multinational corporations are engaged in a re-structuring of the world's economy to favor the profit of corporations (sometimes referred to as "free trade.") This process is underway with no accountability and little public knowledge. Many non-governmental human rights and environmental organizations have described the negative and devastating impact of global economic expansion on native peoples and the environment. Opponents of globalization are often portrayed by the major media (who themselves benefit from the new world economic order) as violent anarchists or mislead unrealistic idealists. You can form your own ideas and learn more about globalization at the International Forum on Globalization.

One example of the environmental impact of globalization is that of logging in the Amazon. Indigenous peoples in Madre de Dios have traveled as far as Washington and UN Headquarters in New York to advocate for limitations on logging exploration in their land. (See "Isolated Amazon Tribes Threatened by Logging.")

However they may be depicted in the media, opponents of globalization are acting in responsible and non-violent ways to educate the public about the dangers posed by corporate domination of world politics. A good source of information on these efforts is at Corpwatch and Global Exchange.

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This page will briefly describe some of the most important environmental challenges that face Peru (and other Latin American countries.) It is divided into several specific topics. Please click on the link to view information about a specific topic.

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Colombia's new president faces daunting environmental challenges

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According to Carlos Castaño, former director of the National Natural Parks System of Colombia and current scientific director of the Caribbean Foundation of Environmental Heritage, there is no doubt about that progress has been made regarding environmental management.

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Venezuela is on a path towards environmental devastation.

In 2016, President Nicolás Maduro opened a large swath of Venezuela to national and foreign mining companies. He was following in the footsteps of his predecessor Hugo Chávez, who first announced plans for the Orinoco Mining Belt, or the Arco Minero del Orinoco.

Chávez was the "father" of the idea, but Maduro implemented it to offset the decline of oil revenue at the national petroleum corporation PDVSA due to alleged corruption and mismanagement.

The vast area, some 112,000 square kilometres, covers 12 per cent of the Venezuelan territory. It crosses rich tropical forests, including the Sierra de Imataca in the east and the centrally located El Caura, as well as the Orinoco and Caroní river basins.

These are all fragile ecosystems, containing the sources of water and plant life that provide the mechanisms that regulate the environment and the generation of hydro-energy. They could be seriously affected by such an extensive mining project that includes legally protected environmental preserves and Indigenous communities.

Global partners in ecocide

In the two years since the first mine broke ground, 200 hectares of forest were lost between December 2016 and April 2017.

Deforestation and pollution from the use of mercury have spread to Canaima National Park, even though it's a protected area by Venezuelan law. Both international corporations and the Venezuelan military - responsible by law to protect the area - are to blame for this environmental devastation, according to experts in the area.

So why aren't any of the global environmental organizations speaking out about it?

As a Canadian-Venezuelan journalist and scholar, I've been trying to answer this paradoxical riddle.

The Orinoco Mining Belt has large reserves of coltan (a mineral coveted by the electronics industry), bauxite, diamonds and gold. Roberto Mirabal, who leads the mining ministry, puts their value at about US$2 trillion.

Military dirty business

Under a scheme of strategic partnerships, the Venezuelan government gave mining concessions to a number of companies based in China, Russia, Canada, South Africa, the Republic of Congo and Australia in 2016.

To give legitimacy to the exploitation of mineral resources by the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB), Maduro created CAMIMPEG, Venezuela's military-run oil and mining company.

The FANB has allegedly been involved in diamond and gold smuggling, swindling artisanal miners and working with guerrilla groups, including Colombia's National Liberation Army and gangs, well before the creation of CAMIMPEG.

Foreign companies were pushed out and replaced by unregulated miners, backed by the military in 2017, while the regime was trying to legitimize mining exploitation in the Arco Minero through partnerships with international corporations.

(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

The Indigenous peoples living within the Orinoco Mining Belt have been the main victims of the military interventions in the mining regions. In an extensive report, journalist Edgar López has documented the horrors associated with the exploration of the mining belt, calling it a destructive cocktail of " crime, corruption and cyanide."

Blind global greens

Within Venezuela, people are speaking out against the mining activity.

Chávez's former ministers and officers have tried to stop the mining there, but their actions were dismissed by Venezuela's highest court. And several Venezuelan non-governmental organizations have also warned against the mining belt's harmful impacts, to no avail.

But little has been said about Venezuela's mining activity at the international level.

Top environmental groups, including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), have been silent.

As of June 2018, there was no mention of Venezuela on the Greenpeace international website, "Orinoco mining" on the WWF website (apart from an article about sustainable fishing in Colombia) or the Arco Minero.

Other organizations such as MiningWatch Canada have not released a public statement about the participation of Gold Reserve - a gold mining company headquartered in Washington state - in the Arco, beyond a recent timid tweet after being pressed to say something about the partnership between the Canadian mining corporation and the Venezuelan regime.

Ideological complicity

These global green activists are usually noisy - what might be behind their surprising silence?

Here are some possibilities:

First, despite having highly polluting industries such as oil and mining, Venezuela has been off the radar of the big environmental NGOs because it was once considered a middle-income country. A perceptual bias could be guiding the advocacy activities of such organizations, who have been very vocal in some cases (e.g. Chevron in Ecuador).

Second, Chávez's "leftist revolution," which favoured the poor, has granted Venezuela a benevolent image ( now widely denied), exonerating it from suspicions of ecocide.

In a recent essay, Venezuelan professor Gisela Kozak Rovero suggests that these leftist ideals are also influencing academia: "The appropriation of leftist discourse ... has allowed the Bolivarian revolution to build alliances with academics in different latitudes and the promotion of militancy disguised as research...."

The same could be said of some green progressives who have chosen ideological blindness instead of facing the truth about the ecological crime that is being committed in Venezuela.

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Why global environmentalists are silent on Venezuela's mining crisis

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Venezuela is on a path towards environmental devastation. In 2016, President Nicolás Maduro opened a large swath of Venezuela to national and foreign mining companies. He was following in the footsteps of his predecessor Hugo Chávez, who first announced plans for the Orinoco Mining Belt, or the Arco Minero del Orinoco.

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From negligence in hospitals to very low working conditions, Haitian immigration in Chile faces several problems

Haitian immigration in Chile has been one of the largest concerns at the state level since its increase in recent years, especially since 2015. According to El País, only in 2017, 73098 Haitians entered Chile, whose difference to 1649 of 2014 is exponential. The great increase in the immigration of the Caribbean country has not only been a challenge at the institutional level, but has also made visible the stigmas that Haitians face.

On May 16, in Santiago, Chile, the Haitian doctor Rebeka Pierre died in the public transport system after the hospital Felix Bulnes discharged without having made the relevant examinations. As reported by La Tercera, as revealed by the autopsy, Pierre died from a pulmonary thromboembolism and a deep vein thrombosis of a lower limb, among others, that could have been traced and prevented in the hospital.

The case of Pierre is added to the list of Haitians who die because of the lack of medical attention, due to the lack of social guarantees and, in many cases, of migratory regularization. For example, as El País recalls, there is the case of Benito Lalane, who died of hypothermia in his precarious house in the winter of 2017, or of Joane Florvil, who died in a hospital in Santiago, after she was unjustly accused "of having left her daughter for two months, so she was arrested. "

Haiti: on the blacklist of Chilean immigration

Although Chilean immigration policy was very limited, since it was made in 1975 during the Pinochet dictatorship, Haitians could travel to Chile and stay as tourists for three months. This situation changed with the modifications that the Government of Sebastián Piñera established on April 9, 2018, which sought to "order the house". As El Dinamo explains, there were changes in temporary visas, specifically in terms of the possibility of working, and special visas were created for Haitians, or Consular of simple tourism and for humanitarian purposes, and for Venezuelans, or Democratic Responsibility visa .

As stated in the Minute: Immigration Reform and National Migration and Aliens Policy, published on the official website of the Chilean government, Haitians were assigned to a special immigration status . In the section entitled "Haiti", it is determined "to demand (...) the obtaining of a Consular Visa for Simple Tourism with the right to entry and stay in Chile in such quality for a period of 90 days, to every Haitian citizen wishing to enter the country for recreational, sporting or religious purposes, without the purpose of immigration, residence or the development of remunerated activities". In this way, the circulation in Chile without any visa was forbidden for any Haitian inhabitant.

Aporophobia and racism against the Haitian community

As the Diario U. de Chile explains, Haiti is one of the countries with the highest stigmatization at the poverty level : "With a GDP per capita of $ 1870, Haiti is installed as the poorest country in all of Latin America". This causes not only that the population repels them, but that there is a stigma "that has condemned the natives of the island to the non-recognition of their university degrees and the lack of consideration of them for professional tasks." In that sense, although the immigrant Haitian is qualified, he is not considered for the jobs he can carry out.

To this is added the racism of Chilean society, which manifests itself through microviolence as racist comments or jokes. As the study mentioned above affirms, "this racism is generally expressed in a subtle way and the migrants themselves, far from recognizing it, tend to naturalize it or simply refer to differential treatment that, they explain, does not affect the fulfillment of their objectives in Chile" .

In this way, the Haitian immigrant lets go of the violence of this attitude and only perceives it as a difficulty to reach his economic objective. It should also be added that, because of racism, the linguistic barrier grows even more. As Professor Maria Emilia Tijoux explains, "The first barrier that Haitians have in Chile is not the language, it is the skin color. From the color of skin, the tongue also becomes a barrier, but it is not the first. The color Chileans appreciate it negatively and then they link it to the language. "

Translated from "¿Qué pasa con la inmigración haitiana en Chile?"

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What happens with Haitian immigration in Chile?

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Your browser does not support the audio tag. Haitian immigration in Chile has been one of the largest concerns at the state level since its increase in recent years, especially since 2015. According to El País, only in 2017, 73098 Haitians entered Chile, whose difference to 1649 of 2014 is exponential.

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A decade after Spain faced economic crisis, prompting hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country, its population has reached its highest ever level as immigrants and returning locals flood into the eurozone's fastest growing major economy.

Spain's population grew by 276,000 people in 2018 to nearly 47 million, its national statistics agency reported on Tuesday - the fastest annual increase since 2009. The rise came largely from immigration, both from traditional sources in Latin America and Morocco as well as other European countries.

"It's comparable to the intense arrival wave in the early years of the 2000s," said Carmen González, a senior analyst in migration issues at Madrid's Elcano Royal Institute.

The population growth marks a stark contrast to the years after the crisis - in the four years to 2016, Spain's population declined by nearly 400,000 people.

The fall reflected the severity of the crisis that hit the Iberian nation: between 2008 and 2013 the Spanish economy shrank by nearly 10 per cent. At the end of 2013, more than one in four persons of working age was unemployed; nearly 60 per cent of those under 25 who were seeking a job could not find one.

Now Spain is more than four years into a strong economic recovery. The improving picture in the labour market helps explain the migration inflow and the fall in emigration by Spaniards, said Ms González.

More Spaniards returned home than left the country last year, for the first time in at least seven years.

Spain's economy has been expanding faster than the eurozone average since 2015 and it is expected to continue to do so this year. Economists' forecasts, averaged by Consensus Economics, suggest Spain's output will rise by 2.3 per cent this year, double the eurozone average.

Job creation has run at an annual average of two per cent for the last four years, and the country has become a destination for migrants from countries such as Italy and Portugal. The number of Italians living in Spain rose by 10 per cent in 2018 to 244,000, while the number of Portuguese rose by 3 per cent - in both cases, the largest increase since the crisis.

"Italy's economy has been stagnant for many years and its labour market is a disaster," said Marcel Jansen, professor of economics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. "Professionally speaking, Spain is a much easier country to construct a decent career, and it shares many of the virtues of the Mediterranean life."

"Everybody loves Italy and has an idea of it, as a place to go on vacation," said Chiara Grassilli, who moved to Madrid in 2017 after five years in London. "But when it comes to living there, the professional opportunities are very limited. For people with masters degrees, who speak several languages, it's not worth staying."

Ms Grassilli, a sales adviser for an internet marketing software firm, said that "Madrid . . . is becoming a very international city. Professionally you have a lot of opportunities".

The largest group to arrive in Spain in 2018 came from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America - most notably Venezuela - who can apply for citizenship after two years of legal residency.

While Spain's increasing population attests to its new-found economic strength, some analysts say the country has failed to develop labour market policies that would help attract highly qualified workers, moving its economy away from dependence on tourism and other low-skilled service sectors.

"There is a serious issue with the lack of qualified personnel and the ability of Spain to retain talent," said Mr Jansen. "Spain basically does not have an immigration policy."

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Spain's population hits record level as immigrants flock in

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A decade after Spain faced economic crisis, prompting hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country, its population has reached its highest ever level as immigrants and returning locals flood into the eurozone's fastest growing major economy.

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(Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan migrants who sought refuge in Peru are coming under attack from politicians accusing them of stoking crime and stealing jobs, as Latin America's biggest-ever exodus stokes xenophobia.

In the latest outburst, the Mayor of Lima's most populous district, San Juan de Lurigancho, said last month that Venezuelans in the area aren't bona fide political refugees but rather "lumpen" consumers of drugs and alcohol, who steal to fund their highs.

The day before, a town assembly in the Andean region of Cuzco voted to expel Venezuelans from the area, blaming them for rising crime.

More than 4 million Venezuelan citizens have left their country in recent years to escape hunger and violence, with 5,000 more leaving every day. That's strained public finances in countries like Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, whose economies are struggling amid weak global demand.

Peru enjoyed the fastest expansion among major South American economies over the past decade. But growth fell to its lowest rate since 2009 earlier this year, as Chinese demand for the nation's copper declined and corruption scandals damped infrastructure investment.

In January, an outbreak of xenophobic rioting in Ecuador sent Venezuelan migrants fleeing and led the government to pledge tougher curbs on immigration.

Easy Scapegoats

Last year, in a border town in northern Brazil, locals chased Venezuelans and burned their belongings in the streets, prompting hundreds to flee. In Colombia, Venezuelan children are often bullied in school.

"Migrants around the world are used as an easy scapegoat," said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. "Countries that are already dealing with economic crisis can certainly see people turn more quickly against migrants."

Peru has about 860,000 Venezuelan migrants, more than anywhere except Colombia. Elsewhere in the country, authorities have gone out of their way to make Venezuelans feel unwelcome.

The Mayor of Chiclayo in northern Peru Oct. 25 announced more police operations targeting undocumented migrants, and called on the migration authorities to deport a group of Venezuelan street hawkers.

No Legal Basis

Earlier this year in the cities of Huancayo and Cuzco, authorities sought to impose curbs on the hiring of migrants by local companies. In Pisco, local authorities said migrants must put their names on a register as a condition for staying.

None of these measures had any legal basis, but they are helping to fuel discrimination against migrants, said Percy Castillo, the human rights advocate at Peru's Ombudsman Office. There's no evidence that Venezuelans are more likely to commit crime than locals, he said.

The number of migrants entering Peru dropped sharply in July after the government began demanding Venezuelans apply for a new humanitarian visa before entering the country.

President Martin Vizcarra said in September that Peru had reached its capacity for attending to migrants.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Quigley in Lima at jquigley8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Matthew Bristow, Walter Brandimarte

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Venezuelan Migrants Suffer Backlash as Peru's Economic Boom Ends

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(Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan migrants who sought refuge in Peru are coming under attack from politicians accusing them of stoking crime and stealing jobs, as Latin America's biggest-ever exodus stokes xenophobia.In the latest outburst, the Mayor of Lima's most populous district, San Juan de Lurigancho,

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https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article202590949.html

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Editor's Note: This article is part of an ongoing series on immigration and integration policy around the world.

Colombia has historically been a source of migration rather than a destination, but that has changed in recent years due largely to the ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. Approximately 1.4 million Venezuelans have fled to Colombia in recent years, according to the United Nations, with potentially hundreds of thousands more expected before the end of the year. As part of his government's response to rising Venezuelan immigration to Colombia, President Ivan Duque announced last month that 24,000 children born to Venezuelan refugees would be granted Colombian citizenship. ...

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Will Colombia's Generous Attitude Toward Venezuelan Migrants Last?

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Colombian President Ivan Duque announced last month that 24,000 children of Venezuelan refugees in Colombia would be given citizenship. This is a step in the right direction, says Beatriz Eugenia S&aacute;nchez-Mojica, but what Colombia really needs is a long-term approach to address the needs of Venezuelan migrants.

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Sub-Saharan migrants arrive iin Granada after being rescued at sea. Miguel Paquet EFE

The dangers of the migration route to Spain are not limited to the danger of crossing the Strait of Gibraltar or the western Mediterranean in unstable boats. The moment they leave home, migrants are subjected to exploitation, violence and abuse for thousands of kilometers.

According to a study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), based on 1,341 interviews with migrants and refugees, 48% suffered at least one out of the five indicators that the organization links to human trafficking, exploitation and abuse. Almost half of the migrants who arrived in Spain in the second half of 2017 and 2018 reported at least one of the following: physical violence, kidnapping, forced labor, arranged marriage offers and jobs in which they weren't paid what they were owed.

The country where respondents suffered the most violence was Morocco, Spain's main partner in controlling irregular immigration. In 46% of cases, migrants stated that they had suffered the most in the North African country. "The abuses are a big source of concern for the IOM" regardless of where it happens, explains the organization, which has noticed in other studies that "a higher frequency of abuse often occurs in the last countries before reaching Europe."

Physical abuse is the most common aggression and was mentioned by 41% of the interviewees. This violence is usually related to kidnappings perpetrated by nomadic groups in desert areas, as well as beatings in larger cities aimed at stealing migrants' belongings, and assaults by human traffickers in boarding areas in Algeria and in northern Morocco. According to the IOM report, 8% of migrants reported witnessing threats of sexual violence, while 2,7% saw people being approached with offers of money in exchange for blood and organs.

While men who are traveling alone are most commonly attacked, violent acts can also take place against migrants traveling in groups or with their families. The IOM states that traveling with a family only guarantees a certain amount of protection for women because the men who migrate with family members run a higher risk. The average victim is from Cameroon, Gambia and Guinea and is 23.5 years old.

Migrants from Algeria and Morocco are the least susceptible to violence because of their proximity to Europe. "The length of the journey is often associated with a lack of resources at the last stage, when it becomes necessary to find a job and to earn money to continue the journey. These circumstances obviously increase the migrants' vulnerability to abuse and exploitation," says the IOM. Out of the number of migrants who reported abuse, 63% spent more than a year trying to reach Europe.

Who migrates, and why?

The IOM report outlines some of the characteristics of those who migrate and their reasons for doing so. Almost half of the migrants interviewed were unemployed. The interviews also revealed that the price of the journey to Spain hovers around €900, a number which 43% of the migrants paid, while 4% paid €4,500. On the other hand, 8% reported not having paid anything. This is often the case with Moroccans and Algerians who are able to leave their countries without help from the smugglers. About 38% of those interviewed spent over a year on the journey.

Regarding the motivations behind migration, 41% mentioned that it was for economic reasons, while 32% stated it was due to personal violence, which includes gender violence, family abuse, genital mutilation, family opposition to inter-religious marriages, conflicts over inheritances or persecution because of sexual orientation or gender identity. On the other hand, 15% said they migrated because of violent conflicts and war. Motivations vary based on gender, as 44% of the men interviewed migrated for economic reasons, while 58% of women did so because of personal violence.

At the start of their journey, Spain was the primary destination for 51% of men and 53% of women, followed by France and Europe in general. These percentages grew at the time that the migrants were interviewed about their final destination - two-thirds ended up choosing Spain. "The increase is due to the fact that reaching other countries in Europe turns out to be harder than they had expected at the beginning of their journey," states the IOM report.

English version by Asia London Palomba.

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Nearly half of migrants who arrive in Spain via Africa report violence on the journey

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The dangers of the migration route to Spain are not limited to the danger of crossing the Strait of Gibraltar or the western Mediterranean in unstable boats. The moment they leave home, migrants are subjected to exploitation, violence and abuse for thousands of kilometers.

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More than three million Venezuelan refugees and migrants have fled poverty, hunger, violence, and persecution in recent years, journeying throughout the Americas and Southern Europe.

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LIMA (Reuters) - Anti-immigration fervor has flared up in this year's race for mayor of Lima, with conservative candidate Ricardo Belmont stoking fears that Venezuelans fleeing their country's economic crisis are a threat to Peruvians' jobs and to public order.

Peruvian Prime Minister Cesar Villanueva has condemned Belmont's rhetoric as opportunistic and dangerous. "He's irresponsibly inciting violence," Villanueva, a centrist, said in broadcast comments on Tuesday. "We can't politicize this problem."

Some 400,000 Venezuelans are now in Peru, with the majority having entered the Andean country of some 32 million people this year, according to Peru's immigration agency.

Venezuelans selling candies and coffee on the streets of Lima are now a common sight. Local media have covered the capture of Venezuelan criminal gang members extensively.

"They're going to take jobs from us poor Peruvians," Belmont said in an interview on local TV channel ATV on Wednesday. "Let's see them take a medical exam, like we ask of servants in our homes. Ask for a certificate of good conduct."

The son of a Frenchman and an Italian woman, Belmont was mayor of Lima from 1990 to 1995 and was known for his down-to-earth style and focus on public work projects.

His reemergence as an outspoken critic of Venezuelan immigration as he campaigns for the job again is the latest sign of a simmering backlash in parts of South America where Venezuelans have settled, potentially playing into politics for years to come.

Recent opinion polls put Belmont second in a crowded race behind front-runner Renzo Reggiardo, who has called Belmont "demagogic."

Belmont's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His supporters say that Peru, a developing country where some 22 percent of the population live in poverty, should do more to help its worst-off citizens instead of helping foreigners.

Last week, angry residents of a Brazilian border town who blamed Venezuelans for an assault in the town drove immigrants back to their country. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have moved to require hard-to-get passports and not just national ID cards from Venezuelans, citing security concerns.

On Sunday, Vizcarra's government tightened the deadline by which Venezuelans must enter the country to be eligible for a temporary residency permit, closing the window at the end of October instead of the end of the year.

If elected mayor, Belmont would govern the city where most Venezuelan immigrants in Peru live, but would lack authority to decide policy on immigration. Belmont hinted in his ATV interview that he hopes to run for president in the future.

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Peruvian politician stokes fears of Venezuelan immigrants

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LIMA (Reuters) - Anti-immigration fervor has flared up in this year's race for mayor of Lima, with conservative candidate Ricardo Belmont stoking fears that Venezuelans fleeing their country's economic crisis are a threat to Peruvians' jobs and to public order. Peruvian Prime Minister Cesar Villanueva has condemned Belmont's rhetoric as opportunistic and dangerous.

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Chile Protests Resume, Crimping Economic Growth

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Chileans demonstrated against economic inequality Monday even as the government announced that protests were hurting the country's growth.

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Venezuela's children flee the country's worsening crisis  | Unreported World

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The Venezuela crisis, perhaps the largest economic collapse outside of war in over four decades, has unleashed one of the most massive migration flows in the world. According to the United Nations, as of June 2019 over four million people had fled the country, with an average 5,000 leaving every day in 2018. Over 80% of Venezuelan migrants have settled in Latin American and Caribbean nations, many of which have never seen migration of this size before.

With the intense impact felt across the region, one would think the response would be fairly unwelcoming in an era of rising nativism globally and anemic economic growth regionally. The initial response though, was mostly positive. But signs of strain are increasing. With a group of students, we conducted research on seven countries, and found examples of both good and bad responses as well as signs of backlash.
Survival Services
Much of the discussion focuses on the provision of survival services, such as food, healthcare, shelter, legal counseling and labor market insertion. Most Venezuelan migrants are now poor and low skilled, and therefore arrive in need of multiple social services. But providing social services is enormously costly for governments, already strapped for resources.

Although most countries provide at least minimal services, and many are collaborating internationally to secure more help from abroad, surveys report that most migrants are not receiving enough survival services. In countries where Venezuelan immigrants represent more than 1.5% of the total population (Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, and the state of Roraima in Brazil) the strains are already visible. Some governments have had to rely excessively on international organizations ( especially Ecuador), or even mobilize the military to help with logistical and humanitarian operations, as in Brazil. Both are signs of desperation.
Legal Facilities
Welcoming migrants also involves providing legal options for entry and residence. For Venezuelans, a valid passport is onerous, if not impossible, to obtain. The Venezuelan government has long had major delays - and unduly high fees - in issuing passports. Starting in 2017, the country suspended passport appointments and renewals indefinitely due to a shortage of necessary materials. It's even harder for Venezuelans to procure other legal documents such as police reports certifying good conduct, an entry requirement for more restrictive countries like Ecuador.

Argentina is setting a good example as one of the few Latin American countries that does not require a visa and passport for Venezuelans to enter the country. In late February 2019, more facilities were established for Venezuelans to obtain a temporary visa even if they were unable to secure all the necessary documents. The government is even matching immigrants with jobs across the country.

Colombia comes next. While Colombia does have a passport restriction for entry, Venezuelan passports are allowed to be expired up to two years. In August 2018, Colombia provided 440,000 migrants temporary residence, which included access to emergency medical care, a social security system, prenatal care, assistance in finding employment, and schooling for children. Additionally, the Colombian government offers Venezuelans living near the border a Tarjeta de Movilidad Frontizera (TMF), which allows for short trips into Colombia, as well as a 15-day transit permit option - giving Venezuelans a legal pathway to migrating through Colombia to another destination.

At the other end of the spectrum are Trinidad and Tobago and, to some extent, Mexico. Trinidad and Tobago requires Venezuelans to have both a passport and a visa. An amnesty was offered to Venezuelans living in the country illegally, but the window for applying was too brief ( two weeks) and the benefit entailed permission to work for only one year. And although Mexico has offered asylum to many Venezuelans, the country is increasingly adopting restrictive responses to all immigrants, not just Venezuelans, partly in response to U.S. pressure.
The Scorecard
Public Attitudes
Most Venezuelans encounter far more security and job opportunities abroad than at home. But signs of nativist popular attitudes are increasing. A report from Argentina showed that about 38% of respondents had witnessed discriminatory behavior towards Venezuelans. In Brazil, there have been reports of violence, including the forced removal of 1,200 Venezuelans from Pacaraima by local citizens. Colombia too has reported mob violence, protests and crimes in areas where Venezuelan migrants are concentrated. In Chile, according to a survey by the National Institute of Human Rights, 68% of Chileans want to restrict immigration, and a different survey found that 75% of respondents thought the number of immigrants was excessive.

Despite all these rising problems, the evidence so far points toward more positive than negative responses. Of the seven countries examined, those with the most welcoming response overall have been Colombia, Argentina, and to a lesser extent Ecuador and Brazil.

What explains this positive general reaction? The answer is a combination of external and domestic factors.
The Role of International Norms: The 1984 Cartagena Declaration
The generally positive reaction is mostly an example of international norms doing their job. Most of the affected countries are signatories of the 1984 Cartagena Declaration or the follow-up 2014 Brazil Declaration. These are landmark international statements, drafted under the auspices of the United Nations, that expand the definition of refugees to include not just individuals directly facing persecution, but also broad categories of humans facing risk situations. The accord commits signatories to provide "assistance to refugees, particularly in the areas of health, education, labor and safety."

Few other regions in the world have adopted this broad norm about refugees. In Latin America, even though most governments have fallen short of fully adopting the Cartagena Declaration - adopting instead some restrictions and ad hoc responses - the Declaration still acts as an important check on nativism. Courts, civic organizations, and some politicians often invoke the principles of the Declaration to challenge nativist responses from governments or ordinary citizens.
The Role of Foreign Policy and Leadership
Another factor is the receiving country's foreign policy. Of the two most highly impacted neighboring countries, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago, the latter has taken the harsher approach cracking down on illegal immigrants and deporting a good number of asylum seekers. One reason for Trinidad and Tobago's harsh approach is that the government maintains economic ties with the Venezuelan oil industry. The government has not broken formally with Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro and refuses to recognize Venezuelans as refugees.

Finally, presidential leadership matters. Ruling parties and especially the president have enormous influence in directing the political climate of a country. Consequently, a ruling party's discourse vis-à-vis Venezuelan migration - almost as much as their policies - can directly affect levels of societal nativism.

President Iván Duque in Colombia and President Mauricio Macri in Argentina have been vocal in their defense of Venezuelan migrants. Macri made the remarkable decision to treat Venezuelans as citizens of Mercosur, which gives them a path to residency, even though Mercosur formally suspended Venezuela's membership in 2017.

Other presidents have demonstrated far less commitment, even when taking a stance against Maduro. Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, for example, mentioned that his country would be pulling out of a UN migration accord, claiming that Brazil needed to take "rigid control" of its border. Ecuador's Lenín Moreno, who also broke with Maduro, issued an announcement that he would not allow immigration "to sacrifice anyone's safety" after a violent incident.
Conclusion
Institutions and public attitudes in Latin America are being tested by the Venezuelan crisis. Immigration already became a divisive issue in the 2017 Chilean election, with one of the main candidates openly adopting an anti-immigrant discourse. Fortunately, the region is protected by pro-immigrant international norms, strong civil organizations and sympathetic politicians. But these defenses may not be enough to contain the rise in nativism that is resulting from Latin America's worst migration crisis in decades.

--

Corrales is a Professor of Political Science at Amherst College and member of AQ's editorial board. Avery Allen, Lakeisha Arias, Manuel Rodríguez, and Logan Seymour assisted on the research and the report.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Responses to the Venezuelan Migration Crisis: A Scorecard

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Venezuela crisis, perhaps the largest economic collapse outside of war in over four decades, has unleashed one of the most massive migration flows in the world. According to the United Nations, as of June 2019 over four million people had fled the country, with an average 5,000 leaving every day in 2018.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The government that emerges from Spain's parliamentary election on Sunday - if one is formed at all - will have an increasingly complicated situation to deal with on many fronts, including the economic one.

With the economy giving signs that the end of a cycle is near, the latest survey by the Family Business Institute shows that 16% of entrepreneurs are planning to reduce their staff, compared with seven percent in 2018. And while 80% of respondents were thinking of making investments last year, this figure has now dropped to 73%.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting slower global growth due to trade tensions and other risks to the world economy. In Europe, heavyweights like Germany and Italy are on the brink of a recession, although Rafael Doménech, of BBVA Research, says that despite a summer filled with bad news, things seem to have calmed down.

For now at least, the Spanish economy is proving surprisingly resilient. Despite the prolonged political deadlock, output continues to grow above the European average: household consumption, investment and government spending are fueling growth rates of 2%.

But it seems inevitable that Spain will eventually suffer from the same symptoms as its neighbors, and they will be compounded by domestic weak points such as having the EU's second-highest jobless rate, and a public debt close to 100% of GDP.

A new crisis would find Spain unprepared to deal with the consequences: the public accounts leave little margin for stimulating growth through fiscal policy, and monetary policy cannot do much more than it already has: the European Central Bank has practically used up its arsenal of tools.

The last labor force survey in Spain, the EPA, shows that the unemployment rate has dropped below 14% for the first time in a decade, but that job creation in the third quarter was the slowest since 2012, when Spain was in a recession.

The tech revolution

María Jesús Fernández, a senior economist at Funcas, rejects any worst-case scenarios. "We'd been expecting a soft slowdown for a long time, and that's what the figures are showing," she says.

The challenges she sees ahead for the next government of Spain are, "in the short run, dealing with the slowdown without significantly damaging the public accounts. And in the long run, preparing Spain for the technology revolution that is already underway. We are not prepared for it, and no measures are being taken. Some decisions are even headed in the opposite direction."

Doménech of BBVA Research underscores the lost opportunities for introducing reforms as a result of the political deadlock, which is blocking progress on important issues such as regional funding, pensions, the labor market and education. This expert estimates that the stalemate has cost the Spanish economy between 150,000 and 200,000 jobs in the last four years, which have seen Spaniards go to the polls in national elections three times already, with a fourth one coming up this Sunday.

"We need training plans. And there is no global strategy for the auto sector," says Álvaro Herrero, a top manager at a Santander-based SME that makes metal parts for automobiles. This company has dropped its plans to hire more personnel after sales forecasts were sharply reduced from last year. "We need a government that sends out clear signals."

English version by Susana Urra.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Facing another election, Spanish economy feels effects of the stalemate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The government that emerges from Spain's parliamentary election on Sunday - if one is formed at all - will have an increasingly complicated situation to deal with on many fronts, including the economic one.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Peru Economy: Population, GDP, Inflation, Business, Trade, FDI, Corruption

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn more about the Peru economy, including the population of Peru, GDP, facts, trade, business, inflation and other data and analysis on its economy from the Index of Economic Freedom published by The Heritage Foundation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Stunning Wealth Gap, Poor Services Behind Chile's Protests

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From afar, Chile has been a regional success story, but the richest 1% of the population earns 33 percent of the nation's wealth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With 46 million consumers, the third largest GDP in South America ($322 billion, 2011 est.) and a robust free market economy, Colombia is a strong economic force in the region. Investor confidence and commercial ties with major world economies are on the rise. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased fivefold and exports have increased fourfold since 2000. Colombia's economy has been growing steadily and faster than the Latin American average, and the nation is quickly becoming one of the world's leading emerging economies. In fact, some economists have included it in a new class of growing economies - CIVETS - Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa, which are characterized by their dynamism and high prospects for growth in the coming decades.

GDP Growth

Colombia has a growing and resilient economy. In 2009, while world GDP decreased by 2 percent, the Colombian economy grew by 1.5 percent. In 2011, GDP growth reached 5.9 percent.

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (Sept 2011) and Global Economic Prospects (June 2011); Departamento Nacional de Estadística (DANE).

Inflation

Colombia's inflation rate is one of the lowest in the region and continues to trend downward. At 3.7 percent, it is near its lowest level in over 50 years. Colombia is one of the few Latin American countries that has never experienced hyperinflation, nor ever defaulted on its debt.

Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2011, *Banco de la Republica, Final data for 2011.

Investment Grade

As a result of its positive economic and financial performance, the three most important rating agencies (Moody's, Fitch and S&P) have granted Colombia "Investment Grade" status, highlighting:

Its ability to deal with internal and external shocks;

Long history of timely debt payments;

Increased macroeconomic policy credibility; and

Waning of security concerns.

Foreign Direct Invstment

Colombia's outstanding economic stability has fostered foreign direct investment, and FDI inflows reached $15 billion in 2011. The United States continues to be the main source of FDI in Colombia.

Source: Banco de la República, Balance of Payments.

Business Climate

According to the World Bank's Doing Business Report, Colombia is the third most "Business Friendly" country in Latin America and the top reformer in the region. The country also ranks fifth in the world and first in Latin America in terms of investor protection.

Source: Top Reformers Report, World Bank; *Positive figures show improvements in business environment climate.

Trade & Export Growth

The strengthening of economic and commercial relations is a priority for Colombia's development. As a result, the country has implemented seven free trade agreements (FTAs) with 15 countries. By 2014, it is expected that the country will have implemented FTAs with 49 countries, gaining preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers worldwide. Colombia's exports have more than tripled since 2000 and exceeded $56 billion in 2011. The United States continues to be the most important destination for Colombian exports.

Source: Proexport and Ministry of Commerce (2011), DIAN.

Useful links

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With 46 million consumers, the third largest GDP in South America ($322 billion, 2011 est.) and a robust free market economy, Colombia is a strong economic force in the region. Investor confidence and commercial ties with major world economies are on the rise. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased fivefold and exports have increased fourfold since 2000.

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transcript

When the Lights Went Out in Venezuela

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Alexandra Leigh Young, Annie Brown and Jonathan Wolfe, and edited by Lisa Tobin and Marc Georges

Thirty million people went without power for nearly a week, making the country's troubled political and economic situation even worse.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."

Today: An economic collapse, a crumbling infrastructure, a contested presidential election - Venezuela was already in crisis. Then the power went out.

It's Wednesday, April 10.

Nick, tell me the story that you were told about what happened in Venezuela last month.

nicholas casey

So it was a Thursday last month in Maracaibo. And David Ardila, who's a publicist there -

nicholas casey

- was sitting at his desk when the lights went out.

[music]

michael barbaro

Nick Casey covers Latin America for The Times.

nicholas casey

This wasn't anything that surprised him because the lights were always going out in the city.

nicholas casey

This is a place on the edge of the electric grid in Venezuela, so it was not unusual for the lights to go out for a number of hours. There were rolling blackouts there. Usually by 4:00 p.m., the lights are back on. But then he got a call from his wife, who said there was not just a power outage in Maracaibo, but all over Venezuela. This was something that wasn't usual. This was something no one had really seen or remembered before.

nicholas casey

We're talking about a country of 30 million people, and almost no one has electricity.

michael barbaro

So the power is out across Venezuela.

nicholas casey

Across the entire country. And that means things get very ugly, very fast.

michael barbaro

What had happened to trigger this blackout?

nicholas casey

According to the electricians' union, it was a brush fire that took place over some cables that were feeding the country. But you have to ask yourself, if one fire is able to turn off all the power to a country, there must be a bigger problem.

michael barbaro

Right.

nicholas casey

And the problem is that Venezuela is in the middle of an economic collapse. That means that key infrastructure in the country isn't getting built, and what's there isn't getting repaired. On top of this, there's massive political unrest.

nicholas casey

There are still two men who say that they're the president of Venezuela, and Guaidó actually has the support of America and 50 other countries, as well. This is extremely unresolved. Donald Trump is saying that Maduro needs to step down and let Guaidó be the president.

michael barbaro

So in this moment when the power goes out, to 30 million Venezuelans, it's not entirely clear who runs the country or who will be solving the blackout.

nicholas casey

Not at all. And it's becoming clear to everybody that Maduro can't do even the most basic thing that a government should be doing, which is keeping the lights on. So these two events aren't directly connected to each other, but you suddenly see that one is starting to feed off of the other, which is this discontent that brought Guaidó to the forefront in Venezuelan politics is now being doubled by the fact that Maduro can't provide electricity. It's underscoring this question which everybody has asked in Venezuela, which is, if you can't provide power, are you actually providing a state?

[music]

nicholas casey

So I decided to go to Maracaibo, which is Venezuela's second-largest city. It's also at the end of the electric grid. So we knew that this was going to be a place where there was going to be problems, and the problems were going to be very big.

nicholas casey

You have to remember that Maracaibo sits on the Caribbean coast. It's a really hot, sweltering city. The old joke in Maracaibo was that it's the coldest city in Venezuela, because everybody has air conditioning. But now, there was no air conditioning. And after a few days, things started to come apart.

nicholas casey

People were running out of food, and it started with the looting. There were big crowds of more than a thousand people that suddenly gathered, looking for food. And these crowds first went to the grocery stores. They sacked almost every single supermarket that was in Maracaibo, but then they kept going. They started taking anything that was available. People were suddenly taking furniture. They were taking washers and dryers. They were taking all of these appliances and anything that they could after this massive economic crisis. You can suddenly imagine if you could get your hands on something that was of value and worth a lot, you would go for it. You would take it, especially if there's no state. There's no one patrolling.

michael barbaro

There's no one patrolling.

nicholas casey

No one. I talked to many store owners who said that they were waiting for the police to come, and the police didn't come. Part of the reason for that is because the police themselves, their paychecks are worthless. People aren't showing up to the jobs. Things are just coming apart this way.

nicholas casey

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

speaker

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

I talked to one woman who was selling vegetables out in front of one of the places that got completely torn apart. People were setting fire to the stores.

nicholas casey

And I asked her why they were setting fire, and she said -

nicholas casey

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

speaker

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

It wasn't actually out of spite. It was because it was dark, and they couldn't see inside the store.

michael barbaro

Burn the store in order to see what you are stealing.

nicholas casey

Burn the store, take as much as you can, and leave it to be burned to the ground, and that's what we saw by the time we were there.

nicholas casey

A lot of these places were just in embers at that point. There were so few places that were remaining, so few pharmacies that were even remaining.

nicholas casey

I ran into one man who had tongue cancer. He was a professor.

nicholas casey

And at that point, you could see his face was completely bulging in tumors that were taking over the sides of his chin, below his jaw, affecting how he could speak.

nicholas casey

He hadn't been treated for weeks, and he told me that he didn't think he had any hope of being able to find medication at that point, because there is nowhere that was going to be able to sell it to him.

nicholas casey

There was so much looting that seemed to be taking place simultaneously across Maracaibo, and then there were firefights that were breaking out between the looters and the owners, as people were trying to break into stores.

michael barbaro

Firefights as in, there's gunfire.

nicholas casey

Gunfire.

^[crowd yelling]

^

nicholas casey

This was just a total anarchy in parts of Maracaibo. Now, these people start to end up in the hospitals. They're going to hospitals, at that point, that didn't have any electricity. So how are you going to take care of people with gunshot wounds when there's no electricity?

[music]

nicholas casey

I needed to see what was going on, but you can't get into hospitals in Venezuela if you're a journalist. Many of them are militarized. People have been arrested for going into these hospitals.

michael barbaro

They don't want you to see.

nicholas casey

This is really at the core of what Maduro can't do in this country. This is very sensitive to the government. They can't treat people. So this has even put the hospital staff and the doctors under threat. They're afraid to speak. But I was able to find a couple of doctors who were able to talk to me behind closed doors in another facility.

michael barbaro

And here, we're actually going to change the voices of these doctors so that their identities are protected and they don't get in trouble for talking to you.

nicholas casey

Right. And these doctors were telling me when I met them that this had been a place where it was already almost impossible to treat patients.

nicholas casey

There was very little water. They were having to wash their hands using bottled water. They were running out of soap.

They didn't have medicines that they needed. And then suddenly, they didn't have any electricity.

nicholas casey

One of the doctors I talked to said -

nicholas casey

The first thing that hit you was the smell.

nicholas casey

There is a stench that is horrific there. And as the people were coming in with injuries from these lootings that were taking place, gunshot wounds, glass wounds because they had broken down the windows, doctors didn't know how to treat them initially. They were trying to treat them. And in some cases, according to one of the medical officials I talked to, people were getting amputations that they didn't necessarily need, because this was the only way that they were going to save this person was doing an amputation, when ordinarily, if you'd had everything that you needed, you would have been able to do something else for this person besides take off their arm or their leg.

michael barbaro

This blackout is literally costing people their limbs.

nicholas casey

Yes. And on top of that, even in the morgue, there's no power.

nicholas casey

So the bodies are starting to rot there.

[music]

That's during the day. But then the night starts to hit, and you have to continue doing work as people are coming in to try to get treated. People were pulling out their cell phones to use the light by their cell phones to try to treat people at that point. This doctor told me that you could hear people screaming.

nicholas casey

But you couldn't tell where the screams were necessarily coming from, because the whole place was dark. At a certain point, a couple of days into this, there was a robbery, when an armed group came in and went to the third floor of one of the hospitals and started to steal from the patients who were there.

nicholas casey

Taking advantage of the fact that you couldn't see anyone in there.

nicholas casey

So one thing that the doctor said was most difficult about this was there was no information on what was going on or when this was going to be over.

nicholas casey

Finally, the government did come out and say it was an act of sabotage that caused this -

nicholas casey

- blaming the U.S. and the opposition for what had happened. But this wasn't something the doctors believed themselves. This was the equivalent of having no information at all still.

michael barbaro

And how, in the government's telling, is the U.S. somehow responsible?

nicholas casey

They said that it was a cybernetic electromagnetic attack that had been launched from the U.S., likely in Houston and Chicago. And that this was an effort by Donald Trump for regime change. Shut down the electricity and you can help the opposition by making Maduro look like he can't run the country.

michael barbaro

And how would that even work?

nicholas casey

There is such technology out there, but he didn't provide any evidence, any pictures, anything showing that that's what had happened. And there are satellite photos showing that there was a brush fire that day.

michael barbaro

And are people buying this story, that the U.S. is behind the blackout?

nicholas casey

Whether you buy it says a lot about how you feel about Maduro. If you follow Maduro, you've probably followed him into a lot of other explanations as well, which largely is based on the idea that the economic crisis of Venezuela has to do with the U.S. and its imperial desires to bring Venezuela down. So of course you see this blackout as probably being their sabotage. But if you're tired of Maduro, if you've been suffering this economic collapse and you think he's the cause for it, then you're not going to believe him for a second. You're going to see this as one more very strong piece of evidence as to why he needs to go, because he can't keep the power on.

michael barbaro

And I guess it's kind of telling that a blackout would be drawn into this political standoff between these two, Guaidó and Maduro.

nicholas casey

Everything now is being used as political ammunition. And when you have something that affects 30 million people at the same time, of course that's going to be the center of the political debate. Why aren't these lights on now?

[music]

michael barbaro

What ended up happening to the power while you were there? Did it ever come back on?

nicholas casey

There was one neighborhood that we were at that had been without power for eight days at that point. When we got there, people were sitting on their lawns in the middle of the dark drinking coffee. And just when we were about to leave, suddenly, all the lights came back on.

speaker 1

[SPEAKING SPANISH] [LAUGHTER]

speaker 2

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

speaker 1

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

And it was just this really magical moment. They were really happy. But when you think about it, if these are the moments of hope that people were having, that the lights are going to come back on, that means it's a long way that Venezuela has to go to actually have real moments of hope.

michael barbaro

And how long did the lights stay on? Not too long. We were there and the lights were still on in that neighborhood. But since then, they've been going on and off throughout Maracaibo. And they just don't know when they're going to have power and when they're not. And I think it left not just me, but almost any Venezuelan terrified about what might be coming next. You just saw a level of violence and disregard for society which I don't think Venezuelans had seen on that scale in most of their lifetimes. What's the next thing that's going to disappear that you couldn't imagine disappearing, and then what's going to happen when that's gone?

Nick, thank you very much.

nicholas casey

Thanks, Michael.

michael barbaro

We'll be right back.

[music]

michael barbaro

Here's what else you need to know today.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

archived recording (benjamin netanyahu)

[SPEAKING HEBREW]

michael barbaro

On Wednesday morning, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was poised to win a fourth consecutive term, edging out his biggest rival, Benny Gantz, a former military chief, in a closely watched election.

michael barbaro

Despite his apparent lead, the election represented a humbling political test for Netanyahu, a conservative figure whose decade-long record of economic progress and diplomatic victory was overshadowed by high-profile indictments over his alleged abuse of power.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

The final results may not be known for days until the ballots of soldiers, prisoners, and hospital patients are counted. And -

archived recording (william barr)

This process is going along very well, and my original timetable of being able to release this by mid-April stands.

michael barbaro

In testimony before the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr said he would deliver the special counsel's report to Congress within the next week.

michael barbaro

Barr said he would redact passages, but said he would identify the reason for each redaction, an assurance that prompted skepticism from Democratic leaders, like Senator Chuck Schumer -

archived recording

Do you trust Barr? Do you trust that these redactions are going to be done in compliance?

archived recording (chuck schumer)

Look, I'll wait till I see it. But thus far, I don't think Barr has conducted himself in a manner that earns people's trust. Color me dubious that he's going to be fair, unless he proves otherwise.

michael barbaro

That's it for "The Daily." I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

Thirty million people went without power for nearly a week, making the country's troubled political and economic situation even worse.

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Alexandra Leigh Young, Annie Brown and Jonathan Wolfe, and edited by Lisa Tobin and Marc Georges

Back to The Daily

transcript

When the Lights Went Out in Venezuela

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Alexandra Leigh Young, Annie Brown and Jonathan Wolfe, and edited by Lisa Tobin and Marc Georges

Thirty million people went without power for nearly a week, making the country's troubled political and economic situation even worse.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."

Today: An economic collapse, a crumbling infrastructure, a contested presidential election - Venezuela was already in crisis. Then the power went out.

It's Wednesday, April 10.

Nick, tell me the story that you were told about what happened in Venezuela last month.

nicholas casey

So it was a Thursday last month in Maracaibo. And David Ardila, who's a publicist there -

nicholas casey

- was sitting at his desk when the lights went out.

[music]

michael barbaro

Nick Casey covers Latin America for The Times.

nicholas casey

This wasn't anything that surprised him because the lights were always going out in the city.

nicholas casey

This is a place on the edge of the electric grid in Venezuela, so it was not unusual for the lights to go out for a number of hours. There were rolling blackouts there. Usually by 4:00 p.m., the lights are back on. But then he got a call from his wife, who said there was not just a power outage in Maracaibo, but all over Venezuela. This was something that wasn't usual. This was something no one had really seen or remembered before.

nicholas casey

We're talking about a country of 30 million people, and almost no one has electricity.

michael barbaro

So the power is out across Venezuela.

nicholas casey

Across the entire country. And that means things get very ugly, very fast.

michael barbaro

What had happened to trigger this blackout?

nicholas casey

According to the electricians' union, it was a brush fire that took place over some cables that were feeding the country. But you have to ask yourself, if one fire is able to turn off all the power to a country, there must be a bigger problem.

michael barbaro

Right.

nicholas casey

And the problem is that Venezuela is in the middle of an economic collapse. That means that key infrastructure in the country isn't getting built, and what's there isn't getting repaired. On top of this, there's massive political unrest.

nicholas casey

There are still two men who say that they're the president of Venezuela, and Guaidó actually has the support of America and 50 other countries, as well. This is extremely unresolved. Donald Trump is saying that Maduro needs to step down and let Guaidó be the president.

michael barbaro

So in this moment when the power goes out, to 30 million Venezuelans, it's not entirely clear who runs the country or who will be solving the blackout.

nicholas casey

Not at all. And it's becoming clear to everybody that Maduro can't do even the most basic thing that a government should be doing, which is keeping the lights on. So these two events aren't directly connected to each other, but you suddenly see that one is starting to feed off of the other, which is this discontent that brought Guaidó to the forefront in Venezuelan politics is now being doubled by the fact that Maduro can't provide electricity. It's underscoring this question which everybody has asked in Venezuela, which is, if you can't provide power, are you actually providing a state?

[music]

nicholas casey

So I decided to go to Maracaibo, which is Venezuela's second-largest city. It's also at the end of the electric grid. So we knew that this was going to be a place where there was going to be problems, and the problems were going to be very big.

nicholas casey

You have to remember that Maracaibo sits on the Caribbean coast. It's a really hot, sweltering city. The old joke in Maracaibo was that it's the coldest city in Venezuela, because everybody has air conditioning. But now, there was no air conditioning. And after a few days, things started to come apart.

nicholas casey

People were running out of food, and it started with the looting. There were big crowds of more than a thousand people that suddenly gathered, looking for food. And these crowds first went to the grocery stores. They sacked almost every single supermarket that was in Maracaibo, but then they kept going. They started taking anything that was available. People were suddenly taking furniture. They were taking washers and dryers. They were taking all of these appliances and anything that they could after this massive economic crisis. You can suddenly imagine if you could get your hands on something that was of value and worth a lot, you would go for it. You would take it, especially if there's no state. There's no one patrolling.

michael barbaro

There's no one patrolling.

nicholas casey

No one. I talked to many store owners who said that they were waiting for the police to come, and the police didn't come. Part of the reason for that is because the police themselves, their paychecks are worthless. People aren't showing up to the jobs. Things are just coming apart this way.

nicholas casey

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

speaker

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

I talked to one woman who was selling vegetables out in front of one of the places that got completely torn apart. People were setting fire to the stores.

nicholas casey

And I asked her why they were setting fire, and she said -

nicholas casey

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

speaker

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

It wasn't actually out of spite. It was because it was dark, and they couldn't see inside the store.

michael barbaro

Burn the store in order to see what you are stealing.

nicholas casey

Burn the store, take as much as you can, and leave it to be burned to the ground, and that's what we saw by the time we were there.

nicholas casey

A lot of these places were just in embers at that point. There were so few places that were remaining, so few pharmacies that were even remaining.

nicholas casey

I ran into one man who had tongue cancer. He was a professor.

nicholas casey

And at that point, you could see his face was completely bulging in tumors that were taking over the sides of his chin, below his jaw, affecting how he could speak.

nicholas casey

He hadn't been treated for weeks, and he told me that he didn't think he had any hope of being able to find medication at that point, because there is nowhere that was going to be able to sell it to him.

nicholas casey

There was so much looting that seemed to be taking place simultaneously across Maracaibo, and then there were firefights that were breaking out between the looters and the owners, as people were trying to break into stores.

michael barbaro

Firefights as in, there's gunfire.

nicholas casey

Gunfire.

^[crowd yelling]

^

nicholas casey

This was just a total anarchy in parts of Maracaibo. Now, these people start to end up in the hospitals. They're going to hospitals, at that point, that didn't have any electricity. So how are you going to take care of people with gunshot wounds when there's no electricity?

[music]

nicholas casey

I needed to see what was going on, but you can't get into hospitals in Venezuela if you're a journalist. Many of them are militarized. People have been arrested for going into these hospitals.

michael barbaro

They don't want you to see.

nicholas casey

This is really at the core of what Maduro can't do in this country. This is very sensitive to the government. They can't treat people. So this has even put the hospital staff and the doctors under threat. They're afraid to speak. But I was able to find a couple of doctors who were able to talk to me behind closed doors in another facility.

michael barbaro

And here, we're actually going to change the voices of these doctors so that their identities are protected and they don't get in trouble for talking to you.

nicholas casey

Right. And these doctors were telling me when I met them that this had been a place where it was already almost impossible to treat patients.

nicholas casey

There was very little water. They were having to wash their hands using bottled water. They were running out of soap.

They didn't have medicines that they needed. And then suddenly, they didn't have any electricity.

nicholas casey

One of the doctors I talked to said -

nicholas casey

The first thing that hit you was the smell.

nicholas casey

There is a stench that is horrific there. And as the people were coming in with injuries from these lootings that were taking place, gunshot wounds, glass wounds because they had broken down the windows, doctors didn't know how to treat them initially. They were trying to treat them. And in some cases, according to one of the medical officials I talked to, people were getting amputations that they didn't necessarily need, because this was the only way that they were going to save this person was doing an amputation, when ordinarily, if you'd had everything that you needed, you would have been able to do something else for this person besides take off their arm or their leg.

michael barbaro

This blackout is literally costing people their limbs.

nicholas casey

Yes. And on top of that, even in the morgue, there's no power.

nicholas casey

So the bodies are starting to rot there.

[music]

That's during the day. But then the night starts to hit, and you have to continue doing work as people are coming in to try to get treated. People were pulling out their cell phones to use the light by their cell phones to try to treat people at that point. This doctor told me that you could hear people screaming.

nicholas casey

But you couldn't tell where the screams were necessarily coming from, because the whole place was dark. At a certain point, a couple of days into this, there was a robbery, when an armed group came in and went to the third floor of one of the hospitals and started to steal from the patients who were there.

nicholas casey

Taking advantage of the fact that you couldn't see anyone in there.

nicholas casey

So one thing that the doctor said was most difficult about this was there was no information on what was going on or when this was going to be over.

nicholas casey

Finally, the government did come out and say it was an act of sabotage that caused this -

nicholas casey

- blaming the U.S. and the opposition for what had happened. But this wasn't something the doctors believed themselves. This was the equivalent of having no information at all still.

michael barbaro

And how, in the government's telling, is the U.S. somehow responsible?

nicholas casey

They said that it was a cybernetic electromagnetic attack that had been launched from the U.S., likely in Houston and Chicago. And that this was an effort by Donald Trump for regime change. Shut down the electricity and you can help the opposition by making Maduro look like he can't run the country.

michael barbaro

And how would that even work?

nicholas casey

There is such technology out there, but he didn't provide any evidence, any pictures, anything showing that that's what had happened. And there are satellite photos showing that there was a brush fire that day.

michael barbaro

And are people buying this story, that the U.S. is behind the blackout?

nicholas casey

Whether you buy it says a lot about how you feel about Maduro. If you follow Maduro, you've probably followed him into a lot of other explanations as well, which largely is based on the idea that the economic crisis of Venezuela has to do with the U.S. and its imperial desires to bring Venezuela down. So of course you see this blackout as probably being their sabotage. But if you're tired of Maduro, if you've been suffering this economic collapse and you think he's the cause for it, then you're not going to believe him for a second. You're going to see this as one more very strong piece of evidence as to why he needs to go, because he can't keep the power on.

michael barbaro

And I guess it's kind of telling that a blackout would be drawn into this political standoff between these two, Guaidó and Maduro.

nicholas casey

Everything now is being used as political ammunition. And when you have something that affects 30 million people at the same time, of course that's going to be the center of the political debate. Why aren't these lights on now?

[music]

michael barbaro

What ended up happening to the power while you were there? Did it ever come back on?

nicholas casey

There was one neighborhood that we were at that had been without power for eight days at that point. When we got there, people were sitting on their lawns in the middle of the dark drinking coffee. And just when we were about to leave, suddenly, all the lights came back on.

speaker 1

[SPEAKING SPANISH] [LAUGHTER]

speaker 2

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

speaker 1

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

nicholas casey

And it was just this really magical moment. They were really happy. But when you think about it, if these are the moments of hope that people were having, that the lights are going to come back on, that means it's a long way that Venezuela has to go to actually have real moments of hope.

michael barbaro

And how long did the lights stay on? Not too long. We were there and the lights were still on in that neighborhood. But since then, they've been going on and off throughout Maracaibo. And they just don't know when they're going to have power and when they're not. And I think it left not just me, but almost any Venezuelan terrified about what might be coming next. You just saw a level of violence and disregard for society which I don't think Venezuelans had seen on that scale in most of their lifetimes. What's the next thing that's going to disappear that you couldn't imagine disappearing, and then what's going to happen when that's gone?

Nick, thank you very much.

nicholas casey

Thanks, Michael.

michael barbaro

We'll be right back.

[music]

michael barbaro

Here's what else you need to know today.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

archived recording (benjamin netanyahu)

[SPEAKING HEBREW]

michael barbaro

On Wednesday morning, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was poised to win a fourth consecutive term, edging out his biggest rival, Benny Gantz, a former military chief, in a closely watched election.

michael barbaro

Despite his apparent lead, the election represented a humbling political test for Netanyahu, a conservative figure whose decade-long record of economic progress and diplomatic victory was overshadowed by high-profile indictments over his alleged abuse of power.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

The final results may not be known for days until the ballots of soldiers, prisoners, and hospital patients are counted. And -

archived recording (william barr)

This process is going along very well, and my original timetable of being able to release this by mid-April stands.

michael barbaro

In testimony before the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr said he would deliver the special counsel's report to Congress within the next week.

michael barbaro

Barr said he would redact passages, but said he would identify the reason for each redaction, an assurance that prompted skepticism from Democratic leaders, like Senator Chuck Schumer -

archived recording

Do you trust Barr? Do you trust that these redactions are going to be done in compliance?

archived recording (chuck schumer)

Look, I'll wait till I see it. But thus far, I don't think Barr has conducted himself in a manner that earns people's trust. Color me dubious that he's going to be fair, unless he proves otherwise.

michael barbaro

That's it for "The Daily." I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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Economic collapse, crumbling infrastructure, a contested presidential election - Venezuela was already in crisis. Then the power went out.

Image

In the coastal city of Maracaibo, Venezuela, 523 shops were looted during a power outage that lasted several days. Credit... Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Nicholas Casey contributed reporting.

"When the Lights Went Out in Venezuela" was produced by Alexandra Leigh Young, Annie Brown and Jonathan Wolfe, with help from Michael Simon Johnson, and edited by Lisa Tobin and Marc Georges.

"The Daily" is produced by Theo Balcomb, Annie Brown, Jessica Cheung, Lynsea Garrison, Michael Simon Johnson, Andy Mills, Neena Pathak, Rachel Quester, Clare Toeniskoetter, Jonathan Wolfe and Alexandra Leigh Young, and edited by Larissa Anderson, Paige Cowett and Wendy Dorr. Lisa Tobin is our executive producer. Samantha Henig is our editorial director. Brad Fisher is our technical manager. Chris Wood is our sound engineer. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

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transcript Thirty million people went without power for nearly a week, making the country's troubled political and economic situation even worse. michael barbaro From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily." Today: An economic collapse, a crumbling infrastructure, a contested presidential election - Venezuela was already in crisis.

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Chileans have been taking to the streets around the country to protest economic inequality and a democratic system set up after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that many say is not responding to people's needs.

Indigenous Mapuche protesting in Temuco, a city 420 miles south of the capital of Santiago, last week tore down several statues of Spanish conquistadors and Chilean national heroes that dotted the city's downtown area.
Related: PHOTOS: Chile's Piñera extends state of emergency, says 'we are at war'
During a day of demonstrations called by Mapuche Indigenous organizations, a large group of demonstrators wearing traditional Mapuche ponchos stood around the bust of Pedro de Valdivia, a Spaniard who led the colonization of Chile in the 1500s, cheering on hooded men who lassoed Valdivia's bust and yanked it onto the ground.

Then, they stomped the statue and beat it with sticks.

Local press reported that conservative analysts called the destruction of the monuments an act of vandalism.

But Verónica Figueroa Huencho, a Mapuche scholar at the University of Chile in Santiago and Mapuche herself, does not see it this way.

"The symbolism of the destruction of these statues is important to us because they were put in ancestral territory and for many years we had to see the image of these conquerors, you know, outside of our homes, outside of our community," Huencho said.

Natalia Caniguan, an anthropologist in Temuco, was following the protests on social media and headed to the city center to see the aftermath.
Related: What makes a protest effective?
"Protesters took the head off the bust of Dagoberto Godoy, a Chilean aviator, and hung it on the bronze hand of Mapuche warrior Caupolicán," Caniguan said, describing the most striking scene she witnessed on the streets.

Caupolicán, one of the leaders of the Mapuche rebellion against the Spanish conquistadors, was captured and killed by Spanish troops in 1558.

Mapuches, the largest Indigenous group in Chile, comprise 10% of the national population, but do not have any representatives in the Chilean Congress.

They have joined the demonstrations to protest economic inequality and also to put forward more particular political demands such as greater political autonomy and recognition of land rights.
Related: These Chilean women joined thousands suing for discriminatory health insurance. Can reforms fix it?
"The Chilean state doesn't recognize our ways to represent our own authority. Our ancestral authority doesn't exist in the Chilean constitution," Huencho said. "And I think that for that reason, in the middle of these protests in Chile, we tried to put in the political agenda our own demands."

The protests, Chile's worst unrest since the end of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, has already led to more than 7,000 arrests and injuries to 1,659 protesters and 800 police officers, according to authorities and rights groups.

Prosecutors are investigating more than 800 allegations of abuse, including torture, rape and beatings by security forces during the demonstrations, which have often degenerated into riots.

The unrest has grown less violent in recent days, but has shown few signs of subsiding.
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The World ©2019

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Mapuche Indigenous people in Chile take down symbols of Spanish colonization

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Chileans have been taking to the streets around the country to protest economic inequality and a democratic system set up after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that many say is not responding to people's needs.

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Introduction

Peru is located in the central part of South America and borders on the north with Ecuador and Colombia, on the east with Brazil and Bolivia, on the south with Chile and on the west with the Pacific Ocean. Peru is the third largest country in South America after Brazil and Argentina and ranks among the 20 largest countries in the world. The country's location facilitates the access to markets in Asia and North America.

The Peruvian territory covers an area of 1,285,216 square kilometers and can geographically be divided into three regions:

The Coast, or Costa, is a narrow desert strip along the Pacific Ocean approximately 3,080 km long, and accounts for only 10.7% of Peru's territory, but is home to about 55% of Peru's population (approximately 17.0 million inhabitants). The political and financial capital Lima is located in this region as well as the rich fishing grounds and agricultural cultivation areas.

The Peruvian Highlands, or Sierra, is the area of the Andean Mountains, covering 31.8% of national territory and serving as home to about 32% of the country's population (approximately 9.9 million inhabitants). This region contains the country's major mineral deposits.

The Amazon Rainforest, or Selva, is with 57.5% of the country's territory the largest region, but only about 13% of the Peru's population (approximately 4.0 million inhabitants) live here. The area is rich in petroleum, gas and forestry resources.

The Peruvian economy is classified as upper middle income by the World Bank. Peru has among other smaller sectors rich deposits of natural resources, huge agricultural potential, good fishing grounds, a traditional textile industry and enormous tourism capacities. It is internationally classifies as a mega-diverse country.

Economic History of Peru

The Peruvian economy is historically based on the countries geographical conditions; the different climate zones facilitate widespread agriculture, the Andes rich in natural resources allow mining and the Pacific Ocean with its fishful waters makes commercial fishing possible. Already the Incas used the existing resources wisely and skillfully. They built a vast empire without the need for markets and money just with a system based on trade and service. The well-organized state relied on the clever management and refinement of agricultural and mining productivity, a brilliant infrastructure and well-fed manpower.

With the Spanish conquest of Latin America in the 16th century the Incan social and economic structures were eliminated. Interested mostly in the rich natural resources the Spaniards exploited the country making the Spanish noblesse within Peru and back home rich while the indigenous population was forced to slavery labor.

The 19th century in Peru is marked by wars and destruction. While Peru's independence was already declared in 1821, fighting continued until the last Spanish conquerors were defeated in 1924. After the war political turmoil including a war with Colombia in 1828 / 1829, with Chile from 1836 to 1839 and finally the War of the Pacific with Chile from 1879 to 1884, which Peru all lost, continued crippling the country's economy. After the war the government started to initiate a number of economic reforms. Just when Peru slowly recovered falling export prices and the Great Depression in the 1930s set the country back once again. From the late 1940s Peru was governed by military juntas. After 30 years of economic mismanagement Peru lay in ruins. In 1980 the country returned to democracy, but experienced next to severe economic problems, high inflation and terrorism.

President Alberto Fujimori's election in 1990 introduced a decade with a dramatic turnaround in the economy and significant progress in curtailing guerrilla activity. Nevertheless, the president's increasing reliance on authoritarian measures generated in the late 1990s increasing dissatisfaction with his regime, which led to his dismissal in 2000. In 2001 Alejandro Toledo was elected as president. The Toledo government successfully consolidated Peru's return to democracy. His strong economic management and promotion of foreign investments led to an impressive economic boom in the country which laid the foundation of Peru's present success, inflation nearly disappeared.

The presidential election of 2006 saw the return of Alan Garcia who, after a disappointing presidential term from 1985 to 1990, returned to the presidency. While many in Peru and abroad had strong doubts at the beginning of Garcia's presidency, they were surprised later. Garcia managed to embrace free markets and free trade, making Peru one of Latin America's top destinations for foreign investment. Despite the global economic and financial crisis foreign investment in Peru increased, the economic status of the country improved, public debt dropped and foreign reserves went up.

Since 2011 Peru is governed by the former Army officer and head of the leftist Peruvian National Party Ollanta Humala. His "Growth with Social Inclusion Agenda" spread joy amongst his followers and fears amongst national and international investors. But nothing is as bad as it looks. It seems that Humala departed from his former radical ideas and arrived in Peru's economic reality. And after a few months into his presidency he already moved quite a way from the left to the political and economic center. Even controversial projects, like the Conga Project involving surface mining of gold and copper, now seems to have governmental support...

Peru's Economy Today

Peru's economy today reflects like centuries ago its varied geography; the different climate zones facilitate widespread agriculture, the Andes rich in natural resources allow mining and the Pacific Ocean with its fishful waters makes commercial fishing possible. Economic growth continues mainly to be driven by exports of minerals (mainly gold, copper, zinc), textiles, chemicals, agricultural products (garden produce and fruits), fish-meal, services and by energy projects making the country's economy vulnerable to fluctuation in world market prices. But liberalization of the goods and labor markets, opening up trade through multiple recent international trade agreements, direct foreign investments and the maximization of the revenues resulting from its rich natural resources paid off with increasing markets, a growth in domestic consumption and the development of the country's financial sector.

Due to the rise in world commodity prices, market policies beneficial to investors and aggressive free trade strategies Peru is one of the world's fastest growing economies with a dynamic GDP growth rate, stable currency exchange rates and low inflation in recent years. Peru's GDP tripled in the past 10 years as a result of its economic growth and rapid expansions. Although more and more Peruvians benefit from the continuous growth and the poverty rate declined to about 24%, inequality persists and the distribution of the country's growing wealth to all Peruvians seems difficult. Especially the poor infrastructure in Peru's provinces not only obstructs more investment in these areas but as well efforts to spread the growth. Additionally political disputes and protests against foreign investors may impede development of some projects related to natural resource extraction exactly in these regions.

Nevertheless Peru is considered a rising star by the International Monetory Fund (IMF) with solid fundaments, a framework of sensible policies and a considerate macroeconomic approach which allow sustained growth and reduce vulnerability.

Trade Agreements

To consolidate Peruvian foreign trade in goods and services, Peru has negotiated several Trade Agreements with large and medium-sized markets in recent years. Peru's market openness in combination with these trade agreements have permitted an increase in the number of exported products and exporting companies. Additionally they are a valuable instrument for attracting direct foreign investment, boosting productivity, transferring technology and improving management and logistic practices in Peru. Overall until now Peru has benefited from regional trade agreements, multilateral agreements and bilateral trade agreements signed and in force within the last few years.

Detailed information about Peru's Trade Agreements with other nations can be found in our Business Guide under " Free Trade Agreements".

GDP

After several years of inconsistent economic performance, for the last 10 years the Peruvian economy is booming and could more than triple its GDP. Even though in the past 4 years GDP growth rates declined due to lower metal prices which affected exports and a weaker domestic demand, the country still has one of the highest GDP growth rates in Latin America and worldwide.

Rising domestic demand, the startup of new mining projects in combination with a strong recovery in mineral export volumes and improvements in the world economy suggest that Peru will continue to grow constantly. Forecasts for 2014 and 2015 are extremely positive and predict a strong economy with a growth rate of around 5.4% respectively 5.9%.

Inflation

As a result of a good economic management, Peru still remains one of the Latin American countries with the lowest inflation rate. The low inflation rates in the past years enabled the country to generate perfect conditions to promote foreign investment and economic growth as well as developing for Peru non traditional sectors like the financial sector. This achievement also had a positive effect on the living standards of the population, especially the poor.

For the year 2011 the Peruvian Central Reserve Bank (BCRP) announced an inflation rate of 4.7% mainly caused by an increase in commodity and gas prices. In 2012 and 2013 the inflation rate in Peru remained within the target rage with 2,65% respectively 2,86%. The BCRP expects that for 2014 and 2015 inflation will remain stable within a range of around 2,5%.

Poverty & Extreme Poverty in Peru

Although more and more Peruvians benefit from the continuous growth, inequality persists and the distribution of the country's growing wealth to all Peruvians seems difficult. From 2007 to 2012 poverty in Peru dropped by remarkable 16%; but still about a quarter of the country's population lives in hardship. The situation even looks worse when comparing urban and rural areas: while for example in Lima only 14.5% were considered poor in 2012, in rural areas in the Andes a shocking 58.8% of the population was needy.

And even though extreme poverty could be halved over the past 5 years, still 6% of Peru's population had to live in a desperate situation in 2012. Nevertheless according to the United Nations Peru uses the right instruments to achieve its poverty reduction goal of 20% of the population by 2016.

Employment, Underemployment & Unemployment in Peru

No doubt about it, Peru's stability and economic growth brought about a substantial reduction in unemployment; but mainly in urban areas. Additionally it shouldn´t be forgotten that in Peru the unemployment rate only measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the economic active labor force. Underemployment (by time or income) as well as casual labor is considered as employed.

So an unemployment rate of 7 % as announced by the Peruvian National Institute of Statistics for the time period of December 2013 to February 2014 for the Lima area (rates for whole Peru are nearly impossible to come by) may sound fantastic, but when looking closely at the numbers only 58.1% of the economic active population was adequately employed in Lima during that time; whereas more than a third was underemployed (11.4% by time and 23.5 % by income).

Moreover Peru still has to fight its huge informal / illegal sector. The Peruvian Labor Ministry estimates that about 68% of the labor market is informal, in percentage of the country's GDP that makes around 35%. The informal sector includes drug cultivation and trafficking, illegal mining and informal activities or "employment" on the labor market.

The minimum wage in Peru increased in 2012 to S/. 750 (about US$ 270); a further increase isn't planned at the moment. In Lima the average wage is S/. 1437.60 (about US$ 513) as of January 2014.

Trade Balance - Imports and Exports

For the past decade Peru's balance of trade registered a surplus. After small hiccups in 2008 and 2009 due to the worldwide economic crisis Peru export sector registered exceptional growth rates. Main exports include minerals (mainly gold, copper, zinc), textiles, chemicals, agricultural products (garden produce and fruits), fish-meal, services and energy. Peru's main export partners are China, the United States and the European Union.

With its growing economy, Peru's imports increased over the past decade as well and are assumed to grow more than exports in the coming years, probably leveling future trade balances. Major imports include petroleum and petroleum products, plastics, machinery for industry and agriculture, vehicles, iron and steel, electronics and food. Main import partners are the United States, China and the European Union.

Economic Sectors

In the last years Peru's economy more and more relies on the mining and fishmeal industry, while the traditional agricultural sector still plays an important part. Economic growth continues to be driven by exports of minerals (mainly gold, copper, zinc), fishmeal, agricultural products (garden produce and fruits), textiles, chemicals and services to gain foreign exchange for importing machinery and manufactured goods.

Mining

Mining represents an important source of foreign currency and the reason why a significant part of investments have been carried out in the country over the last decade. Even though only around 10% of the territory with mining potential has been explored and 6% are currently mined already now exports of the mining sector mainly drives Peru's economy today. The principal minerals extracted in Peru are silver, zinc, copper, molybdenum, lead and gold. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries from January 2012, Peru ranks worldwide on preferential places in mining these metals: Silver 2st, Zinc 3rd, Copper 3th, Molybdenum 4th, Lead 4th and Gold 6th.

Non-metal minerals are mostly used nationally in the construction materials industry, ceramics industry, and in a lesser degree the fertilizer and chemicals industry. Local companies are aiming for export of products or by-products. Among the non-metal minerals with greater potential are diatomite, bentonite and borates as well as phosphates.

It can be expected that (foreign) investment within the mining and hydrocarbon sectors will continue and even grow in the coming years.

Fishing

Fishing is one of Peru's main productive activities and a major export sector. With nearly 2500 km of coastline and the rich, cold-water Humboldt Current Peru's maritime "territory" is home to a great diversity of fish, mollusk, crustacean, echinoderm and algae species. At the moment only around a fifth of the resources are exploited.

Peru's fishing industry is periodically controlled by the government, which has made an effort to reduce overfishing and enhance the sustainability of Peruvian fisheries by establishing a fishing quota. Additionally, the government imposes fishing bans contingent on the size of the fish. Nevertheless primary investments in processing plants during the 1960s paid off making Peru into a main world producer of fishmeal and fish oil (used as animal feed and fertilizer). Fish-meal is Peru's fourth largest. Over the last few years fish production for direct human consumption (frozen, canned and cured) gained importance.

Agriculture

As a genetic resource Peru has 25,000 plants. It has nearly 4,400 species of native plants with known use like food, medicinal, ornamental, spicing, dyeing, gynecological, aromatic and cosmetic properties. Peru is a mega diverse country comprising 84 of the 104 life zones acknowledged in the world in its 11 natural eco-regions. This broad variety of climates allows growing practically any crop, some even all year round. Over the last 20 years the fruit and vegetable export industry in Peru has expanded rapidly and has made Peru an important player in world markets for a number of commodities. Although coffee and sugar have been traditionally the main agricultural export products, Peru is more and more specializing in growing and exporting high price fruits and vegetables. Peru is the leading exporting country in the world of asparagus and dried paprika. Other significant exports are artichokes, mangoes, pepper, grapes, avocados, chestnuts, bananas, white onion and olives.

Over the last years Peru has become a major player in the organic food market, ranking under the top organic coffee and bananas exporters in the world. Other organic produce, such as mangoes, cotton and cocoa gained importance on the world markets as well. Additional Peru has numerous indigenous high protein products including Andean cereals such as quinoa, amaranth and tarwi as well as a huge variety of maize and potatoes, tropical fruits, herbs and flowers that still have to be discovered by world markets.

Peru is one of the world's leading growers of coca, from which the drug cocaine is refined. Coca leaves were used for years as a stimulant and appetite-suppressant by Native Americans of the sierra. Working with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Peruvian Government carries out alternative development programs in the leading coca-growing areas in an effort to convince coca farmers not to grow that crop. Read more about this below under Narcotics.

Tourism

After years of political unrest and economic difficulties in the 1980s and 1990s Peru's tourism industry constantly increased over the last decade. A rich cultural and historical heritage, amazing archaeological sites, a great biodiversity (coast, highlands, and jungle) and an ever more internationally recognized gastronomy attract each year more tourists from around the world. Today tourism contributes significantly to Peru's revenues. In 2007 around 1.9 million foreign visitors came to Peru, in 2009 already 2.1 million visited, in 2010 2.2 million and in 2011 over 2.5 million paid the Land of the Incas a visit. And for 2012 Peru expects around 2.7 million tourist.

No wonder. Even though many foreign tourists mainly come to Peru to visit the archaeological site of Machu Picchu, there are many more that slowly become known, such as Caral, Chavin de Huantar, the Kuélap Fortress, Lord of Sipan and the Nazca Lines. Jungle tours are getting more popular and even the capital of Lima attracts with its beautiful historical city center, numerous museums, pre-Inca archaeological sites and a good infrastructure more visitors. Probably being the Gastronomic Capital of Latin America with diverse restaurant scene helps as well.

Textile

The Peruvian textile industry has its origin in the ancient cultivation of cotton and extraordinary textile dyeing and weaving techniques developed by pre-Colombian cultures. The stunning growth of textile infrastructure in Peru is primarily due to textile production being recognized as a strategic business for the country. While still much of manufacturing in Peru is on the small scale, over the past 10 years factories mainly along the Peruvian coast have invested in state-of-the-art technology. Automatic sewing machines, centralized dyestuff dispensing units, modern dyeing machines, compacting machines, foulard's and other finishing equipment ensure the highest quality textiles. Peruvian pima cotton is one of the finest cottons in the world and provides the industry with an exceptionally long fiber famous for its strength, luster and softness. Peruvian Alpaca fiber and especially Peruvian Baby Alpaca wool are recognized around the world.

Forestry

The Peruvian government has made serious efforts to protect its natural resources and wildlife whilst stimulating its forest industry through the allocation of concessions for sustainable forest management. However Peru has yet to take advantage of the around 50% of the country's land area covered by forest. Especially infrastructure problems leave the huge forest potential in impoverished and illegal coca-producing areas untouched. Even though the sector grew over the last few years, the trade balance in terms of wood products is negative. Today forest products include balsa lumber, balata gum, rubber and a variety of medicinal plants. Notable among the latter is the cinchona plant, from which quinine is derived (anti malaria medicine).

Narcotics

Since ancient times the cultivation of coca leaves (the raw material required to make cocaine) has a cultural and social significance for the indigenous people of Peru. Until today the stimulant effects of the coca leave are used for medical purposes and in traditional religious ceremonies. Coca tea (mate de coca), legal in Peru and sold in every supermarket, is often recommended for travelers in the Andes to prevent and relieve the symptoms of Altitude Sickness. Offered as well coca flour, coca energy drinks, coca energy bars and coca sweats.

Nevertheless it's undeniable that most of the coca production is used for the cocaine industry. Illegal coca leave cultivation and cocaine production in Peru increased dramatically. In 2000 coca bushes were grown on around 43,400 ha land; in 2010 this number has gone up more than 41% to 61,200 ha. Efforts of the Peruvian government to stem the problem don't really show effects. Even though the Peruvian government working together with different international cocaine buyer countries started a War against Drugs and carries out alternative development programs in the leading coca-growing areas in an effort to convince coca farmers not to grow that crop. Unfortunately these efforts had little impact on the production of coca. In most of these impoverished regions cocaine production is the only income source of farmers. Today Peru is one of the leading coca growers and among the top cocaine producers. Peruvian officials estimate that cocaine production for 2010 reached around 330 tons.

Economic Perspective

Peru is one of the most vibrant economies in the world. The country's economic performance has been very strong with a decade long expansion resulting in tripling of the per capita income and a 20% fall in poverty rates. But Peru's economy is mainly driven by exports making the country vulnerable to fluctuations in world market prices and to the overall performance of the worldwide economy. Nevertheless Peru's economic future is assumed to be bright with a growing economy, low inflation and increasing investments. On the other hand the country still has to deal with some big challenges, especially regarding social issues. Despite some recent improvements, its income distribution is unequal. Widespread rural poverty, lack of overall infrastructure and social services especially in rural areas might affect growth and causes more and more social and political conflicts. Peru as well still has to conquer its huge informal sector and the problems arising with drug production and narco-trafficking.

Sources

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Peru is located in the central part of South America and borders on the north with Ecuador and Colombia, on the east with Brazil and Bolivia, on the south with Chile and on the west with the Pacific Ocean.

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The World Bank Group engagement with Colombia is structured around a model that provides development solutions adapted to the country, with an integral package of financial, knowledge and convening services.

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Brookings scholar Dany Bahar on how the crisis unfolded and what to do about it.

Venezuela was once the envy of Latin America, an oil-rich country whose people enjoyed both democracy and prosperity. But in recent years, it has become the region's basket case, with a repressive government, soaring hyperinflation, a 60 percent drop in GDP, and deadly shortages of food, medicine, and other essentials.

This week on And Now the Hard Part, we trace the roots of the problem and talk about how to fix it.

"Venezuela is probably home right now to the largest humanitarian crisis that this hemisphere has seen, perhaps the world, in modern history," said Dany Bahar, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"This is a man-made crisis. It was manufactured by those in power for the past 20 years as a result of many things including, perhaps, [Venezuela] being one of the most distorted economies in the world."

Listen to the episode on this page or subscribe and download wherever you get your podcasts.

About And Now the Hard Part: The world is a particularly confusing and daunting place these days: Russian bots, North Korean nukes, trade wars and climate emergencies. To understand it better, Foreign Policy and the Brookings Institution are teaming up for an 8-part podcast series. On each episode, host Jonathan Tepperman and a guest from Brookings discuss one of the world's most vexing problems and trace its origins. And then, the hard part: Tepperman asks the guest to focus on plausible, actionable ways forward. Jonathan Tepperman, Foreign Policy's editor in chief, hosts the podcast. The guests are some of the smartest and most experienced analysts around-all scholars from the Brookings Institution, including former government and intelligence officials. See All Episodes

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How to Repair Venezuela's Shattered Economy

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Venezuela was once the envy of Latin America, an oil-rich country whose people enjoyed both democracy and prosperity. But in recent years, it has become the region's basket case, with a repressive government, soaring hyperinflation, a 60 percent drop in GDP, and deadly shortages of food, medicine, and other essentials.

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It appeared to be a confrontation between humanitarianism and military force. In February, the Venezuelan government placed troops along the country's border with Colombia to block the entry of humanitarian aid coming from the US and supported by opposition leader, Juan Guaido.

The blockade was widely covered by the news and sparked controversy when the trucks carrying the supplies were accidentally burned during the clashes between the military and those trying to clear their passage.

Similar scenes were repeated on Venezuela's border with Brazil - albeit with even more tragic consequences. There, the military convoy sent to guard the border was stopped by the local indigenous police in the Pemon community of Kumarakapay - in the Gran Sabana national park, an area considered official indigenous territory. The military opened fire, resulting in at least two casualties. Zoraida Rodriguez - an indigenous woman - was killed in her own home.

The unrest at the border between Venezuela and Brazil, however, received much less media attention than the troubles at the Colombian border - partly because events didn't fit the western media's dominant narratives about Venezuela.

Read more: Venezuela: a humanitarian and security crisis on the border with Colombia

These mainly focus on the country's failing economy, and the threat of a potential US military intervention, based on America's historic record of involvement in other Latin American nations. In the West, the story is often portrayed as a dispute between the troubled Venezuelan government and US imperialism, assuming the Venezuelan nation is internally homogenous. But this ignores the contentious relationship that many Venezuelans, indigenous people included, have historically had with the government.

A matter of sovereignty

The confrontations between Pemon indigenous people and the military along the Brazilian border, then, should also be understood as an issue of sovereignty over indigenous territories. Indeed, they also stand in sharp contrast to the Venezuelan government's own rhetoric, which positions the state as a champion of the indigenous cause.

National sovereignty has been a recurrent theme of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, which was proclaimed by former president Hugo Chavez. This movement espouses socialist policies and a resistance to foreign, particularly US, interference. But the history of indigenous resistance to colonial invasion has also been used by both Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro (who took power in 2013), to symbolise this defiance of foreign intervention.

In 1998, Hugo Chavez gained power with the highest electoral margin in 40 years. His victory was partly because he included marginal populations, such as indigenous people, in his Bolivarian nation-building project.

Read more: Venezuela: region's infectious crisis is a disaster of hemispheric proportions

In fact, many indigenous peoples in Venezuela initially saw their incorporation into the Venezuelan nation as part of the Bolivarian Revolution. The 1999 constitution, for example, was the first to provide a host of rights for indigenous groups, including "native rights over the land".

In the 20 years that have elapsed since then, however, many of the state's promises regarding indigenous people and their territories remain largely unfulfilled and disaffection among them is growing.

Digging in

Historically, state expansion into indigenous territories in the south of the country has been linked to natural resources, particularly gold and bauxite, which are abundant in the area. Since colonial times, policing and regional control have been used by the state to exert its monopoly over mining resources.

Shutterstock

This hasn't changed much under the Bolivarian governments since 1998. In 2016, for example, the government launched a large-scale and widespread mining project to combat the economic crisis. This project has resulted in the increased militarisation of mining areas in the north of Bolivar and Amazonas states, near indigenous territories.

In the early 2000s, during the early years of Chavez's revolution, the authorities' presence in indigenous territories, such as the area of Gran Sabana - where Zoraida Rodriguez was killed during the recent unrest - was cast in a more "benevolent" light. The state still enforced its control through a heavy police presence, but a number of special programmes (misiones) were also set up by the government, which benefited many local people through goods and other forms of aid. The programmes were made possible thanks to high international oil prices, and reached remote areas of the territory which had been overlooked by previous governments.

Since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2015, however, state aid has reduced, and now reaches indigenous territories only intermittently, or not at all. The military presence, on the other hand, has increased. The result of this is a breakdown of the relationship between the Venezuelan state and indigenous people, and a return to the longstanding struggle over territory and mining resources.

The February confrontations between the military and indigenous people over the entry of US aid are symptomatic of this increasingly contentious relationship. These tensions have been exacerbated by the internal contradictions of the Bolivarian Revolution, which seemingly acknowledges indigenous people's autonomy and rights over their lands, while simultaneously exercising control over the territory they occupy in the name of national sovereignty. And with the economy in freefall, things may only get worse.

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Venezuela: indigenous people are forgotten victims of crisis

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It appeared to be a confrontation between humanitarianism and military force. In February, the Venezuelan government placed troops along the country's border with Colombia to block the entry of humanitarian aid coming from the US and supported by opposition leader, Juan Guaido.

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Main languages (mother tongues) among Spanish adults (18-64): Castilian Spanish (89.8 per cent), Catalan (11.1 per cent), Galego - Galician (5.5 per cent), Valencian (4 per cent), Arabic (2.2 per cent), Euskara - Basque (1.8 per cent)

Main religion: Roman Catholic (68.8 per cent), other (3.3 per cent)

In 2017, the total number of Spanish Muslims came to 834,000 - a number that rises to around 1.95 million when the additional 1.1 million Muslim migrants are factored in, predominantly from Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal and other countries.

Minority groups include (these minorities are calculated based on their main language, therefore it is possible to be counted as both Catalan and Spanish): Catalan speakers 5.3 million (2011), Galician speakers 2.4 million and Basques 896,000 (2016). (These are figures sourced from official statistical agencies within each autonomous region and so represent the number of speakers within these areas only: data sets also include a range of levels of comprehension from basic understanding to fluency. For instance, there are significant numbers of Basque speakers in neighbouring Navarre, where around a tenth of the population speak Basque.) Catalans live in Catalonia in north-east Spain and in the Balearic Islands, Valencians south of Catalonia in Valencia, Galicians in Galicia in the north-west and Basques in the region on either side of the western Pyrenees, the majority in Spain.

While the Spanish government does not record statistics on the ethnic and racial background of its population, it does record the foreign population in Spain, which amounted to 4.7 million non-citizens in 2018 (about 10 per cent of the population). Among the largest national migrant populations are from: Morocco 769,100, Romania 673,000, UK 240,900, China 215,800, Colombia 165,600, Ecuador 135,000, Bulgaria 123,700, Germany 110,900 and Ukraine 106,800. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has made multiple recommendations for Spain to amend its data collection process.

Spain has the largest Roma population in Western Europe, numbering approximately 725,00 - 750,000.

There is a very small Jewish community comprising approximately 40,000 people, living mainly in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga as well in the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. A sizeable number are Sephardic Jews who have returned to Spain from Morocco, descendants of the vast number of Jews who were expelled from Spain hundreds of years ago. In October 2015, a law came into effect extending Spanish citizenship to descendants of those who were expelled. The timeframe was meant to have been 3 years, but in 2018 the government announced that it was extending the legislation for a further year. At the time of the announcement, 6,432 Jews had received Spanish citizenship. When the law was passed, the authorities estimated that approximately 90,000 people might apply, although there was really no means to arrive at a precise figure. While those applying need not be practising Jews, they do need to prove their heritage, which they can do with the assistance of their local rabbis or Jewish community groups in Spain.

After Spain joined the European Union in 1985, industry, agriculture, and services developed rapidly. Immigration became an increasingly important issue from the 1990s. Many of Spain's legal foreign residents are retired citizens from other EU countries, but they have been overtaken in numbers by Latin Americans, and growing numbers from Morocco and Eastern Europe, especially Romania, some of whom are Roma.

While Spain has long been dominated by the powerful influence of Roman Catholicism and Castile, where the Spanish monarchy was historically based, the country includes a diverse range of languages and regional identities, including autonomous regions such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Valencia. As part of the transition to democracy following the repressive rule of General Francisco Franco who died in 1975, the 1978 Constitution recognized the different 'nationalities and regions' of Spain and their right to self-government while also emphasizing the 'indissoluble unity' of the nation. This led to the process of creating the autonomous communities, and there are currently 17 autonomous regions and two autonomous cities in Spain. These autonomous regions gained jurisdiction over education in 1992 and health in 2002.

Yet the struggle for greater political autonomy has intensified in recent years, particularly in Catalonia, where significant sections of the population desire an independent state. Recent debates over autonomy were energized in 2012 when the central government rejected Catalonia's request to sign a fiscal pact to collect and manage its own taxes, similarly to the Basque Country and Navarre. In recent years there have been two unauthorized independence referendums - one in 2014 and the other in 2017. In the latter, Spain's biggest political crisis in decades, over 90 per cent of voters favoured independence; the turn-out was 43 per cent. Spain's Constitutional Court deemed the referendum illegal, and peaceful protestors and voters faced a violent crackdown by Spanish police.

These events in Catalonia reflect the ongoing tensions between Spain's central authorities and its regional and linguistic minorities. The government has made efforts to protect minority languages, particularly the official languages of the autonomous regions. However, many have demanded that the government goes further. There remain key challenges to be addressed, such as the issue of minority language usage in both official and health services. For instance, court proceedings cannot take place in a language other than Spanish unless both parties make a request, and not all staff at health centres in autonomous regions are fluent in the region's language. In Galicia, no more than half of a child's education can take place in the Galician language.

Spain also has the largest Roma population in Western Europe, numbering around 750,000 people, who despite some government measures to support their inclusion remain a marginalized and discriminated group in the country. Their exclusion is reflected in the community's educational outcomes, for example, with 45 per cent completing compulsory schooling, 10 per cent secondary education and 2 per cent higher education. Roma also struggle with widespread social discrimination, with a 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre showing that almost half (49 per cent) of respondents had unfavourable attitudes towards Roma. While their situation has improved significantly in the decades since Franco's death in areas such as housing - for example, the rehousing of hundreds of families between 1999 and 2011 reduced the proportion of Roma living in inadequate housing from 31 per cent to less than 12 per cent - they continue to face the effects of social segregation, with significantly higher levels of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy compared to the majority of the population.

The historical presence of a Moorish kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula and the geographic proximity of Spain to North Africa is reflected in the long-established Muslim, predominantly Arab, minority that continues to expand through immigration. While Spain's Muslim population has generally enjoyed widespread tolerance, with the country largely avoiding the development of far-right and xenophobic politics comparable to that in France or Italy, there have been reports of rising hostility in recent years, in particular following violent attacks in Europe. Two attacks in August 2017 by a number of Moroccan-born men in Barcelona and the nearby town of Cambrils that killed a total of 16 people and injured more than 100 others led to a spike in the number of reported anti-Muslim incidents. The Citizens' Platform Against Islamophobia (PCI) recorded 546 Islamophobic incidents in 2017; the majority of them were media- and internet-based.

Like Roma, migrants contend with higher poverty levels, lower educational outcomes and a legacy of discrimination. Spain's policy towards migrants - long characterized by prevention and containment, especially in the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, both enclaves of Spanish territory in North Africa with high walls and barbed wire separating them from the surrounding Moroccan territory - has also hardened in recent years as the number of migrants and asylum seekers entering the country has begun to rise. Nevertheless, Spain remains a relatively inclusive space for migrants and despite increasing levels of immigration, the country has yet to see the formation of a mainstream anti-migrant political party.

Spain occupies most of the Iberian Peninsula and also includes the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, and small enclaves in Morocco: Ceuta and Melilla.

The North African Moors ruled most of the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. In the far north, there arose powerful Christian local magnates with strong family alliances. From the eleventh century, during the period known as the Reconquista, these families gradually united against the Moors. In 1492 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, rulers of the two most powerful kingdoms, ended Moorish rule in Spain.

The expulsion of an estimated 800,000 Jews and 3 million Muslims, and the persecution of Roma enforced national unification through religious belief and orthodoxy, but local institutions survived. Spain embarked on three centuries of conquest in the Americas, during which time the separatist claims of the northern regions - each economically linked to different colonial possessions - grew. From the sixteenth century the colonial wealth was dissipated in internal religious and dynastic power struggles and in external wars. In 1714, when Bourbon rule was established following the War of the Spanish Succession (a civil and external war), the state was centralized. Occupation by French forces in the Napoleonic era strengthened this.

In 1823 Spain was incapable of defending its American colonies against the United States' Monroe Doctrine (maintaining that Latin America was a US sphere of interest and encroachment by other colonial powers would not be tolerated). The Spanish-American War of 1898 against the United States, known as 'The Disaster', led to the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and a number of Pacific Islands to the United States. In the early twentieth century Spain violently colonized Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. But a badly planned invasion of Morocco led to defeat in 1921.

The monarchy was discredited and General Miguel Primo de Rivera set up a military dictatorship from 1923 to 1931. In 1931 the Second Spanish Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia and gave voting rights to women. However, regional autonomy was short-lived on account of the 1936-9 Civil War. The 1939 Nationalist victory was followed by rigorous centralization, the dismantling of regional authorities and brutal reprisals against dissent. The regime of General Francisco Franco banned every language and dialect other than Castilian, banned regional cultural manifestations, and imposed national unity in education and the media. Resistance turned violent after the Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) was formed in 1959. Catalan demands for autonomy also grew, but with less violence. These movements and the government response helped discredit right-wing politics and prepared the way for reform once General Franco died in 1975. The 1978 Constitution created a decentralized structure with autonomy for regions and communities.

From 1850 until the 1970s Spain was a country of emigration. In the twentieth century 6 million Spaniards emigrated. Until the 1930s the destination of choice was Latin America, especially Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Cuba. From the 1950s three-quarters of emigrants left for northern Europe under guest worker programmes. Many were obliged to return on account of the oil crises and economic recession of the 1970s. Tourism and industrialization were increasing in Spain at this time. The Spanish economy rapidly modernized and strengthened after Spain joined the European Union in 1986. Then Spain became a destination for high-income immigrants from other EU countries and for migrant labourers from North Africa and Latin America. In 1995 Spain applied the terms of the Schengen Convention, an open-border system between certain EU member states. Spain became a transit point for migrant workers wanting to enter the EU and travel north. The number of low-income immigrants increased rapidly from 1999, causing alarm among politicians, the media, and the electorate.

The Franco era left a legacy of harsh policing. Spain has been criticized over the years by national and international human rights organizations for its police harassment of and brutality against Roma, new minorities, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, and Basque nationalists.

The 1978 Constitution proclaims 'the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation', while recognizing and guaranteeing 'the right to autonomy of the nationalities and the regions'. The 'nationalities' are Catalonia, Euskadi (the Basque Country), and Galicia, all of which had majority votes for autonomy under the 1931 Constitution. Together with Andalusia, they have achieved autonomy under Article 151 of the 1978 Constitution.

Other regions negotiated autonomy statutes under Article 143, which gave reduced powers in comparison with Article 151. The Constitutional Court plays a crucial role in resolving disputes and in shaping the nature of the relationship between the 17 autonomous regions and the central government.

Autonomy under Article 151 devolves education and housing policy to the regions. Some regions, such as the Balearic Islands, whose autonomy statutes derive from Article 143, have been able to increase their autonomy to gain full control over education.

The Constitution guarantees civil rights and equality before the law without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status.

The 1985 Law on Foreign Status sets visa, residency and work permit quotas for temporary immigrant workers. Family reunification was not encouraged. Work permits could be renewed but, in practice, it was difficult for foreign workers to do so. Penalties for employers who hired undocumented workers were not enforced, leading to an increasing number of illegal immigrants. A 1996 amendment recognized immigrants' rights to equality, education, and legal advice. It allowed regional governments to provide for the welfare of immigrant children. It established a permanent resident category and formally included family reunification within its framework.

Law 4/2000, adopted by the then Socialist government, allowed for the integration of legal immigrants but it also allowed for the expulsion of illegal immigrants to their country of origin. It failed to address the difficulties for employers and immigrant workers in obtaining and renewing work permits. It also failed to take account of the difficulties of local authorities in establishing the country of origin of many undocumented immigrants. These problems remained, despite the more stringent Law 8/2000, passed without debate by the Popular Party government, and which came into force in January 2001. This made a clearer distinction between legal and illegal immigrants and withdrew education rights for the children of illegal immigrants. From 2001, agreements were signed with the governments of Ecuador, Colombia, Morocco, Dominican Republic, Nigeria, Poland, and Romania to control immigration to Spain in the main sending countries.

Laws 8/2000 and 4/2000 were both reformed in 2003, with measures making it easier to deport immigrants who committed crimes and giving police access to local authority records. The 2004 reform, effective in 2005, focused on reducing the black market economy and offered a regularization process for around 800,000 out of 1.2 million illegal immigrants.

Amnesties for illegal immigrants in 1986, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2005 bear testimony to the ineffectiveness of immigration laws.

The autonomous regional and community authorities have set up departments to deal with immigrant affairs.

Children acquire Spanish citizenship automatically if one parent is Spanish, if they are born in Spain or one of their parents was born in Spain. Foreigners can take Spanish nationality if they have been living in Spain for 10 years, have adequate knowledge of the language, are integrated into society, have a certificate of good conduct from the police and renounce their previous nationality.

European Union (EU) equal treatment directives were enacted in Spanish law in December 2003. The Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia was opened in March 2005 to track racism and propose measures against it. The creation of a Council to ensure the implementation of the EU directives was discussed in 2005 without further result.

The conservative Popular Party banned both Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) and the Basque separatist party Herri Batasuna in 2003, although party members kept their seats in the Basque regional parliament by changing the name of the party.

Spain ratified International Labour Organization Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in February 2007.
General
Amnesty International
Website: www.es.amnesty.org

Asociación de Solidaridad con los Trabajadores Inmigrantes
Website: http://www.asti-madrid.com

Colectivo IoE
Website: http://www.colectivoioe.org

HOEGOA [Basque] Centro de Documentación e Investigación, Facultad de Económica de la UPV
Website: http://www.hegoa.ehu.es

SOS Racismo Madrid
Website: http://www.sosracismomadrid.es

Movimiento contra la Intolerancia
Website: http://www.movimientocontralaintolerancia.com/

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
[Umbrella organization for human rights NGOs in the OSCE area]
Website: http://www.ihf-hr.org

BASTA Ya
[campaigning organization for victims of terrorism]
Website: http://www.bastaya.org/www2/portada.php
Basques
Behatokia (Basque Observatory of Human Rights)
Website: http://www.behatokia.info/aurkezpena.php

Torturaren Aurkako Taldea (Group Against Torture - part of Behatokia)
Website: http://www.stoptortura.com/

Etxerat (Association of Relatives of the Politically Repressed - part of Behatokia)
Website: http://www.etxerat.info/

Eskubideak
[Basque Solicitors Association - part of Behatokia]
Website: http://www.eskubideak.org/
Catalans
Institut d'Estudis Catalans
Website: www.iec.cat
Galicians
Bloque Nacionalista Galego (Galician Nationalist Party)
Website: http://www.bng-galiza.org

A Mesa pola Normalización Lingüística,
Website: http://www.amesanl.org

Instituto da Lingua Galega
Website: http://www.usc.es/~ilgas/
Jews
La Federación de Comunidades Judías de España (FCJE)

Website: http://www.fcje.org/
Roma
Unión Romaní
Website: http://www.unionromani.org/

Asociación de Enseñantes con Gitanos
Website: http://www.pangea.org/aecgit/

Asociación Nacional Presencia Gitana
Website: http://www.presenciagitana.org/

Fundación Secretariado Gitano
Website: www.gitanos.org
Valencians
Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
[official standardization organization)]
Website: http://www.avl.gva.es

Academia de Cultura Valenciana
Website: http://www.racv.es/

Acció Cultural Pais Valencia
Website: http://www.acpv.cat/web/

Minority based and advocacy organisations

Sources and further reading

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Main languages (mother tongues) among Spanish adults (18-64): Castilian Spanish (89.8 per cent), Catalan (11.1 per cent), Galego - Galician (5.5 per cent), Valencian (4 per cent), Arabic (2.2 per cent), Euskara - Basque (1.8 per cent) Main religion: Roman Catholic (68.8 per cent), other (3.3 per cent) In 2017, the total number of Spanish Muslims came to 834,000 - a number that rises to around 1.95 million when the additional 1.1 million Muslim migrants are factored in, predominantly from Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal and other countries.

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Main languages: Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, other indigenous languages

Main religions: Christianity (majority Roman Catholic and a growing number of evangelical Protestants), indigenous religions

Indigenous peoples include Achuar, Aguaruna, Asháninka, Shipibo, Huambisa, Quechua and Aymara, who together comprise 45 per cent of the population. There are 51 indigenous peoples in Peru. By far the most numerous are the highland Quechua, who comprise an estimated 83.1 per cent of the indigenous population according to the 2007 Census of Indigenous Communities. The Aymara population of some 500,000 is concentrated in the southern highland region near Puno. Lowland indigenous groups include Achuar, Aguaruna, Asháninka, Huambisa, Quechua and Shipibo. Around 80 per cent of Peru's over 31 million inhabitants self-identify as either indigenous or mestizo (mixed).

Minority groups include Afro-Peruvians, persons of Chinese descent (also known as Tusan) and persons of Japanese descent (Nikkei).

Despite the historical lack of a 'national' indigenous movement in Peru and a notable emphasis on class identity among peasant communities in Peru, highland organizations joined together in 1999 to form the increasingly ethnically minded Confederación Nacional de Comunidades del Perú Afectadas por la Minería (CONACAMI).

Native leaders in the Amazon (from Aguaruna, Huambisa, Asháninka, Shipibo-Conibo, Amuesha and Cocama-Cocamilla communities) formed their own ethnic federations as early as the 1970s. In recent years they have focused their efforts on protesting against oil company intrusions and demanding government recognition of their territorial rights. According to the Asociación Interétnica para el Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), created in 1980, Aguaruna communities have successfully reclaimed land invaded by settlers for production of cocoa and coffee.

Since the late 1990s umbrella organizations such as the Conferencia Permanente de los Pueblos Indígenas del Perú (Permanent Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples in Peru, COPPIP) have been established to unite Andean and Amazonian interests under one ethnic banner. In contrast to national and pan-national ethnic movements in Ecuador, indigenous activism is less visible in Peru, but it is no less present and manifests itself in multiple ways.

Peruvians of African descent tend to be concentrated in the southern coastal regions. In response to their experience of poverty, marginalization and racism, they have created organizations such as the Asociación pro Derechos Humanos del Negro and Asociación Palenque, which fights for the full achievement of equal rights.

After Peru abolished African slavery, it turned to China for cheap labour. Thousands of indentured labourers arrived during the mid-1800's to work in the guano mines and in agriculture. Their descendants developed a unique culture merging Chinese and Peruvian influences, and today Peru is home to the largest ethnic Chinese (called Tusan) community in Latin America.

Peru was among the first Latin American republics to establish diplomatic relations with Japan. Migration of Japanese to Peru began in the late 1800s, many of whom were employed as contract workers on sugar plantations and mills. In 1990 a Japanese-descendent agronomist, Alberto Fujimori, became president. Many Japanese have been owners or operators of small shops and bars, and they have made a significant contribution to the Peruvian economy. Today they constitute one of the country's most influential ethnic minorities (called Nikkei), both in economic and political terms.

A new census was conducted in October 2017. For the first time, respondents were asked to self-identify by ethnicity, in order to disaggregate socio-economic indicators by ethnic groups. However, representatives of the communities of Chinese and Japanese descent criticised the fact that only indigenous and Afro-descendant options were explicitly listed; census officials responded that they should mark 'other' and then fill in the blank.
Updated July 2020

Peruvian media has long disseminated gross stereotypes of both Afro-Peruvians and indigenous peoples. After concerted efforts by civil society groups and strong criticism in 2014 from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, two derogatory caricatures ('El Negro Mama' and 'La Paisana Jacinta') were pulled from regular prime-time slots, although they have repeatedly cropped up again - highlighting the persistence of racism in Peru.

Despite steady economic growth during recent years, health investment in Peru remains among the lowest in Latin America. This lack of investment is especially felt i n poorer areas, where indigenous and Afro-Peruvian populations are predominant. These include the marginalized urban     around Lima and the rural communities along the Pacific coast, in the Andes mountains and in the Amazon rainforest. Inequality in health service access is reflected in the contrast between the maternal and infant mortality rates of the richer urban areas, compared to those with majority indigenous and Afro-Peruvian populations. C ritics have argued that in general there is a lack of a clear policy, appropriate financing and adequate service delivery to these populations, especially given their culturally specific health needs. The official focus is curative more than preventive, with an emphasis on reproductive health that ignores the non-reproductive and preventable illnesses that also affect women, including hypertension and diabetes. Adding to the economic challenges that impede access to proper health services for indigenous and Afro-Peruvian communities are the racism and discrimination connected to their cultural and ethnic identity. The perception of many indigenous women is that they are treated with contempt bordering on abuse in some health centres because they are poor and also come from indigenous communities.

As in other countries in the Americas, the healthcare situation is complicated by language. In Peru health professionals very rarely speak the languages of the indigenous communities they serve. Therefore, it is often impossible to explain the prescribed treatment or to obtain informed consent. This in turn promotes more anxiety and mistrust , which influences the choice of many indigenous women to use traditional medicine and give birth at home. This indigenous cultural preference can produce added bureaucratic challenges. Some health centre personnel refuse to provide live-birth verification to indigenous babies born at home or whose parents have not been able to pay a punitive fine for not submitting to official prenatal control. Without this document, the child cannot receive the official birth certificate, which is needed to obtain national identity documents.

An other ongoing issue in Peru is the reluctance of the government to grant communal land titles. There is currently no official government agency that is responsible for land titling. Only 19 indigenous land titles were granted between 2006 and 2010. As of 2016, there were 666 indigenous communities in the Amazon who still have titles pending.
Updated July 2020

Environment

Peru is located on the Pacific coast of South America. It borders Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east and Chile to the south. Geographically, it has three distinct regions: a narrow coastal strip, the wide Andean mountain range and the Amazon rainforest. The coastal strip is mainly desert. The Andean region has wet and dry seasons, although the eastern Andes generally receive much more rainfall than the western slopes. Peru is divided up into 25 departments: in five of these (in the Andes) - Apurímac, Ayacucho, Cusco, Huancavelica and Puno - indigenous Peruvians constitute a numerical majority.

History

There is evidence of advanced cultures existing in present-day Peru as early as 1000 BC E , however the region containing Peru was not unified until 1400 A CE when the Inca conquered much of the territory that now makes up Peru, Bolivia, northern Argentina, central Chile and Ecuador.

The rapid expansion of the Inca empire began in 1438, when the emperor Pach a cuti defeated Aymara rivals near Lake Titicaca. The empire was short-lived, last ing less than one hundred years, and f ollowing the fall of the Inca Empire in 1532, Peru fell under Spanish rule and in 1534 was established as a colonial Viceroyalty. The indigenous population in the ensuing years was decimated by disease and repression, including forced conscription in mining work - a principal source of wealth for the Spanish empire. Yet as Peru became a major colonial hub, the Spanish authorities nevertheless relied on collaboration with local indigenous leaders to maintain control, particularly in remote areas.

While the rest of Latin America fought for independence, Peru remained largely loyal to Spain due to the conservative Peruvian aristocracy, large Spanish population, and the fact that Lima was the base of Spanish military power in the region. However, growing resistance to the Spanish regime culminated in the wars of independence (1811 - 1824). Peruvian independence was declared in July 1821, mostly through the efforts of Argentine-born José de San Mart í n who eventually withdrew, leaving power to Sim ó n Bolivar. Bolivar left Peru in 1826 before a stable government had been established. The government experienced numerous changes and Spain did not officially recognize its independence until 1869. In 1920, a new Constitution was adopted that included the protection of indigenous lands.

The country remained dominated by a largely white landowning oligarchy who maintained control well into the twentieth century, when the emergence of an energized populist movement saw a challenge to these vested interests and a period, beginning in the 1930s, of political fluctuation between democratic parties and the affluent traditional elite. The military repeatedly interfered in the country's politics, preventing elected leaders from taking office and staging coups, including in 1968 when General   Juan Velasco Alvarado seized power.

From 1968 until 1980, Peru was ruled by a military junta with Alvarado as its head until 1975. The junta embarked on a programme to control key industries and public services and in 1969 initiated a far-reaching agrarian reform process, with the objective of breaking up the hacienda system in Peru. However, the reform had more impact on the coastal region than the highlands, and, when undertaken in the highland regions, it largely involved the installation of state-run farms rather than the direct restitution of lands to indigenous and peasant communities. This helped to create rather than appease social conflict: a number of illegal land invasions took place during the period due to the lack of a state presence in the Andean and Amazonian regions. As a result, grassroots  rondas campesinas  (civil defence patrols) were formed in northern Peru to combat the local thefts, delinquency and land invasions after agrarian reform.

The Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces, led initially by Velasco, incorporated indigenous symbols into its identity. It recognized Quechua as an official language in areas with a high proportion of indigenous people (1976), promoted bilingual education and issued legislation to protect the rights of native and peasant communities in highland and lowland regions (1974). In 1987 the Peruvian Congress introduced a new agrarian law which threatened to expropriate 'unused' communal land in the highlands and make it available for business and development. The clause was withdrawn, however, after a major protest by national farming organizations and international support groups.

In 1980 the Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) burst onto the national political scene. It originated in the province of Ayacucho but gradually spread to other regions, forcing the government to declare a state of emergency in more than half of the country. Initially many indigenous peasants supported Sendero, which appealed to excluded Andean populations as a grassroots ethnic movement, but its economic and political ideology disregarded and sought to destroy distinctive features of Andean life. Indigenous communities became increasingly wary of the organization's extensively violent methods. Despite the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzmán, Sendero has remained active, although it no longer poses a significant threat to the Peruvian state. In total, the conflict has claimed between 40,000 and 60,000 lives. Indigenous people have suffered the most; 75 per cent of the victims have been Quechua-speakers and approximately 600,000 Quechua   campesinos have been displaced.

In 2001, Alejandro Toledo , of Quechua heritage, became the first democratically elected indigenous president in South America. In the ensuing years there have been a number of positive steps in the area of indigenous peoples' rights, though ongoing conflicts around issues such as mining on communal territory persist.

Governance

In June 2011, former army officer Ollanta Humala won the presidency of Peru. Before his election, Humala - who campaigned as a populist - sought to assure companies they could proceed with existing and new multi-million dollar resource extraction projects. At the same time, to help ease community concerns over mining and oil drilling, he promised that Peru's natural resources would be used to improve the lives of the mostly poor indigenous and Afro-Peruvian people in the country. Nevertheless, during 2011, increasing social conflict over mining in both the indigenous Andean highlands and lowland Amazon ian rainforest threatened the implementation of large-scale mining and oil extraction projects. The result was an increase in mining protests involving as many as 200 disputes nation-wide.

In December 2013, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights launched the National Commission against Discrimination, in collaboration with other ministries. The Commission monitors developments and advises the national executive branch on public policies on e quality and non-discrimination, with the aim being to address the different structural causes of discrimination in Peru.

Hum a la's term ended in 2016 and was characterized by what became known as paquetazos normativos , largely incoherent legislation that violated territorial rights and lessened environmental monitoring. One of these includes Supreme Decree 001-2015-PCM which allows companies to obtain the agreement of community leaders in various extractive projects without giving them clear and detailed information first. Another concerning piece of legislation wa s Law No. 30327, which among other things, allows for the granting of rights over lands the government deems under-utilized to large-scale projects. Despite the government ' s as s ertion that it would not apply to lands belonging to indigenous peoples, many organizations opposed the law.

In parallel to the government of Peru, a landmark development In November 2015 was the formation of the Government of the Wampis Nation, Peru's first autonomous indigenous government. Its first elected president, Wrays Pérez Ramírez, fully recognizes the legitimacy of the Peru vian state , but sees the creation of th e Wampis Nation as an important step aimed at protecting the Amazon from environmental harm . In March 2017, the Wampis Nation won a major victory when the Fourth Constitutional Court of Lima ruled that a prospecting license granted to an oil company had been incorrectly issued without the Wampis government's consent.
Updated July 2020

Afro-Peruvians
Centro de Estudios y Promoción Afroperuanos (Lundu)

Centro de Desarrollo Étnico (CEDET)

Centro de Desarrollo de la Mujer Negra Peruana (CEDEMUNEP)

Asháninka Aymara and Highland Quechua
Centro de Communicación, Capacitación y Cultura Arunakasa
Email: arunakasa@terra.co.pe

Coordinadora de Trabajo con Mujeres de Ayacucho

La Confederación de la Nacionalidades Indígenas de Perú
Website:
General
Confederación de Nacionalidades Amazónicas del Perú

Updated July 2020

Minority based and advocacy organisations

Sources and further reading

Afro-Peruvians

Hooker, J., 'Indigenous inclusion, black exclusion: race, ethnicity and multicultural citizenship in contemporary Latin America', Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, 2005.

Luciano, J. and Rodriguez Pastor, H., 'Peru', in MRG (ed.), No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today, London, MRG, 1995.

Reid Andrews, G., Afro-Latin America, 1800- 2000, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.

World Bank, 'Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian development project', 2000, URL: www.wds.worldbank.org

Ashaninka

Green, S., 'Getting over the Andes: the geo-eco-politics of indigenous movements in Peru's twenty-first-century Inca empire', Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 38, no. 2, 2006.

Rainforest Foundation, NGO-based in the UK [has helpful information about the Ashanika in the Amazonian region; tells readers about the problems they face such as road building and illegal logging] http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/

The Forest Peoples Programme, NGO based in the Netherlands and the UK [raises awareness about indigenous communities in the Amazon that have chosen to live in inaccessible areas] http://www.forestpeoples.org/

Aymara and Highland Quechua

García, M.E., 'The politics of community: education, indigenous rights and ethnic mobilisation in Peru', Latin American Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 1, 2003.

Green, S., 'Incas, Indios and indigenism in Peru', NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 38, no. 4, 2005.

Remy, I.M., 'The indigenous population and the construction of democracy in Peru', in D.L. Van Cott (ed.), Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America, London, Macmillan, 1994.

Comunidad Tawantinsuyu NGO [has useful information about traditional medicine practices among indigenous communities in Peru] http://www.comunidadtawantinsuyu.org/

Portal Cultural de la Región Andina [tells readers about recent news, events and different indigenous organizations in Latin America] http://www.quechuanetwork.org/

General

Allen, C.J., The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community, Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution, 1988.

Federación Internacional de los Derechos Humanos, Alternative Information to Peru's Report sumbitted to the Committee for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, March 1999.

Leyton, M. and Patrinos, H.A., 'Estimating the number of indigenous peoples in Latin America', in G. Hall and H.A. Patrinos (eds), Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Development in Latin America, New York, Palgrave, 2006.

Peru Support Group, Mining and Development in Peru with Special Reference to the Rio Blanco Project, edited by A. Bebbington, M. Connarty, W. Coxshall, H. O'Shaughnessy and M. Williams, London, 2007.

Poole, D. and Renique, G., Peru: Time of Fear, London, Latin America Bureau, 1992.

Starn, O., Degregori, C.I. and Kirk, R. (eds), The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics, London, Latin America Bureau, 1996.

Takenyaka, A., 'The Japanese in Peru: history of immigration, settlement and racialisation', Latin American Perspectives, vol. 31, no. 3, 2004.

Van Cott, D.L., ' "It is not a priority": the failure to form viable ethnic parties in Peru', in D.L. Van Cott (ed.), From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Minorities and indigenous peoples in

Peru:

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Main languages: Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, other indigenous languages Main religions: Christianity (majority Roman Catholic and a growing number of evangelical Protestants), indigenous religions Indigenous peoples include Achuar, Aguaruna, Asháninka, Shipibo, Huambisa, Quechua and Aymara, who together comprise 45 per cent of the population. There are 51 indigenous peoples in Peru.

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Indigenous groups in Chile stage rights march

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Hundreds of marchers took to the streets of Chile's capital on Saturday to demand greater rights for indigneous people and protest against the government.

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Colombia's President Ivan Duque said five Indigenous people were killed and six injured by narco-trafficking groups in the country's southwest.

Those responsible for the deaths in Cauca province are drug trafficking groups that wanted to maintain business, Duque said on Wednesday in a video statement on Twitter.

"We join the pain of communities and families," he added.

The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) denounced the murder of indigenous leader, Cristina Bautista, and four volunteer guards of the Tacueyo community.

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels were once active in Cauca province, where they pushed to expand their territory clashing with indigenous guards.

Colombia and the FARC reached a peace deal in November 2016, ending more than 50 years of conflict between the two sides. Following the demobilization of the leftist rebel group, a political arm of the FARC was established, which is represented in the country's Congress.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

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Colombia: Narco groups kill 5 Indigenous people

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Colombia's President Ivan Duque said five Indigenous people were killed and six injured by narco-trafficking groups in the country's southwest. Those responsible for the deaths in Cauca province are drug trafficking groups that wanted to maintain business, Duque said on Wednesday in a video statement on Twitter.

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By Olufemi Terry / ShareAmerica September 27, 2019

At a celebration of World Indigenous Day in Caracas, Venezuela, on August 9, Maduro said the indigenous peoples of Venezuela are in "active resistance" against efforts to isolate his regime. That view makes a mockery of the recent experience of the Pemon, an indigenous community of 30,000 people who live in a part of Venezuela that potentially holds great wealth.

The Maduro regime, squeezed by sanctions and its own mismanagement of oil production, is desperate for revenue. In 2016, the regime launched the Orinoco Mining Arc Project to exploit more than 111,000 square kilometers of land in Venezuela's middle belt that is believed to hold some of the world's largest gold deposits as well as diamonds, coltan and bauxite.

Venezuelan soldiers acting on the regime's orders, armed gangs and Colombian militants have created a lawless atmosphere of illegal mining and logging in the region, as a result of rampant corruption and the rule of law breaking down.

The Pemon have come under attack from the army and other armed groups as they attempt to defend their lands against illegal miners and loggers as well as against corrupt and brutal soldiers.

In February, government troops killed two Pemon and injured as many as 25 while sealing the border to prevent humanitarian aid coming in.

Since then, as many as 1,300 members of Venezuela's Pemon community have fled across the border to Tarauparu village in Brazil, where other Pemons live, according to a U.N. Refugee Agency report.

"With the collapse of Venezuela's economy and the resulting food and medicine shortages, crippling inflation and widespread social upheaval," says the report, "it's not clear when - or even if - the hundreds of Pemons who have found safety in Brazil will return to Venezuela."

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Maduro's Praise of Indigenous Venezuelans Rings Hollow

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By Olufemi Terry / ShareAmerica September 27, 2019 At a celebration of World Indigenous Day in Caracas, Venezuela, on August 9, Maduro said the indigenous peoples of Venezuela are in "active resistance" against efforts to isolate his regime.

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Although less than 4% of Colombia's population is made up of indigenous people - split into roughly 87 distinct indigenous groups - this is a rich and varied set of cultures with a long and diverse history. There are several different indigenous groups in Colombia that have opened their cultures up to tourists to a certain extent, and visiting these people and learning about their lives is a fascinating and unique experience. However, please be aware that these are people, so be respectful of their cultures and privacy, and always try to organize a visit with a local, community-based project, rather than simply turning up with a camera!

The Wiwa are one of the four indigenous peoples who live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, along with the Kogui, Arhuaco, and Kankuamo. The Wiwa are more active in tourism than many of their other local counterparts, and even run an agency offering treks to the Lost City, one of their most sacred sites. Wiwa Tour offers a unique perspective on any trip to the Lost City, and all the guides are local Wiwa people, who can give you far more information about the site than any outside guide could. Make sure you choose them if you're planning a visit to the city.

[jwplayer M5cy8l04-RnIdcM25]

Wayuu people in La Guajira | © Tanenhaus / Flickr

Another of the peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Arhuaco are generally more isolated from the outside world than the Wiwa, but it is possible to visit their spiritual capital of Nabusimake, tucked away in the southern Sierra, not too far from the regional capital of Cesar, Valledupar. Nabusimake is a gorgeous little village, hidden away in a peaceful valley in the mountains. Visitors can still be a source of contention there, however, so go with a reputable agency, and try to be respectful when it comes to photos and the like.

Nabusimake near Valledupar | © Chris Bell

The Guambiano - or Misak - are an indigenous people who live in the southern department of Cauca, mostly around the small mountain village of Silvia. This village is the site of a weekly market - always on a Tuesday - when Guambiano people from the surrounding mountains come down to the village to buy and sell goods. You can visit Silvia on a Tuesday and learn more about Misak culture; however, be aware that they are especially not fond of having their photo taken, so always ask politely if you plan to do so.

The Guambiano market in Silvia | © inyucho / Flickr

Also known as the Nasa, the Páez people live in the southwestern highlands of Colombia, many of them around the ancient archaeological site of Tierradentro. Although there are no formal means of visiting the Páez culture, many Páez people work as guides around the tombs and catacombs of Tierradentro, and during a tour, you can gain a fascinating insight into their cultures and traditions.

The Puinave are an indigenous people from the eastern Amazonian region of Guainia. Although their culture remains somewhat isolated, the location of the Puinave village of El Remanso alongside the ancient rocky Mavecure Hills in the Guainia jungles has put them in greater contact with tourism. They also have no formal tourism infrastructure, but local Puinave people act as guides on hikes up the ancient rocks, and are happy to discuss their culture, and tell stories of their myths and legends and how they are connected to the hills.

A Puinave guide on top of the Mavecure Hills | © Chris Bell

Embera Chamí

The Embera Chami people are spread around the western lowlands of Colombia, especially in the regions of Choco, Risaralda, and Caldas. The reservation of San Lorenzo is located in Caldas region, near the town of Riosucio, and is a great place to visit if you wish to learn firsthand about their remarkable culture. San Lorenzo is opening up as a community tourism project, and it is possible to arrange a visit with local guides which includes a hike, typical food, a healing ceremony with an Embera priest, and even live music.

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful - and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Indigenous Cultures You Can Actually Visit In Colombia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Colombia is home to more than 80 distinct indigenous cultures and there are many you can visit in order to learn more about their unique traditions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Although less than 4% of Colombia's population is made up of indigenous people - split into roughly 87 distinct indigenous groups - this is a rich and varied set of cultures with a long and diverse history. There are several different indigenous groups in Colombia that have opened their cultures up to tourists to a certain extent, and visiting these people and learning about their lives is a fascinating and unique experience. However, please be aware that these are people, so be respectful of their cultures and privacy, and always try to organize a visit with a local, community-based project, rather than simply turning up with a camera!

The Wiwa are one of the four indigenous peoples who live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, along with the Kogui, Arhuaco, and Kankuamo. The Wiwa are more active in tourism than many of their other local counterparts, and even run an agency offering treks to the Lost City, one of their most sacred sites. Wiwa Tour offers a unique perspective on any trip to the Lost City, and all the guides are local Wiwa people, who can give you far more information about the site than any outside guide could. Make sure you choose them if you're planning a visit to the city.

[jwplayer M5cy8l04-RnIdcM25]

Wayuu people in La Guajira | © Tanenhaus / Flickr

Another of the peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Arhuaco are generally more isolated from the outside world than the Wiwa, but it is possible to visit their spiritual capital of Nabusimake, tucked away in the southern Sierra, not too far from the regional capital of Cesar, Valledupar. Nabusimake is a gorgeous little village, hidden away in a peaceful valley in the mountains. Visitors can still be a source of contention there, however, so go with a reputable agency, and try to be respectful when it comes to photos and the like.

Nabusimake near Valledupar | © Chris Bell

The Guambiano - or Misak - are an indigenous people who live in the southern department of Cauca, mostly around the small mountain village of Silvia. This village is the site of a weekly market - always on a Tuesday - when Guambiano people from the surrounding mountains come down to the village to buy and sell goods. You can visit Silvia on a Tuesday and learn more about Misak culture; however, be aware that they are especially not fond of having their photo taken, so always ask politely if you plan to do so.

The Guambiano market in Silvia | © inyucho / Flickr

Also known as the Nasa, the Páez people live in the southwestern highlands of Colombia, many of them around the ancient archaeological site of Tierradentro. Although there are no formal means of visiting the Páez culture, many Páez people work as guides around the tombs and catacombs of Tierradentro, and during a tour, you can gain a fascinating insight into their cultures and traditions.

The Puinave are an indigenous people from the eastern Amazonian region of Guainia. Although their culture remains somewhat isolated, the location of the Puinave village of El Remanso alongside the ancient rocky Mavecure Hills in the Guainia jungles has put them in greater contact with tourism. They also have no formal tourism infrastructure, but local Puinave people act as guides on hikes up the ancient rocks, and are happy to discuss their culture, and tell stories of their myths and legends and how they are connected to the hills.

A Puinave guide on top of the Mavecure Hills | © Chris Bell

Embera Chamí

The Embera Chami people are spread around the western lowlands of Colombia, especially in the regions of Choco, Risaralda, and Caldas. The reservation of San Lorenzo is located in Caldas region, near the town of Riosucio, and is a great place to visit if you wish to learn firsthand about their remarkable culture. San Lorenzo is opening up as a community tourism project, and it is possible to arrange a visit with local guides which includes a hike, typical food, a healing ceremony with an Embera priest, and even live music.

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful - and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Indigenous Cultures You Can Actually Visit In Colombia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Colombia is home to more than 80 distinct indigenous cultures and there are many you can visit in order to learn more about their unique traditions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Image

A country upended: Protesters erected a barricade on a Santiago street last week.

SANTIAGO, Chile - The suddenness of the protests, the anger that spilled onto the streets every day, might have been surprising anywhere. But in the country often lauded as Latin America's great economic success story, it has shocked the world.

For three weeks, Chile has been in upheaval. One day alone, more than a million people took to the streets of Santiago, the capital.

Perhaps the only people not shocked are Chileans. In the chaos, they see a reckoning. The promise that political leaders from the left as well as right have made for decades - that free markets would lead to prosperity, and prosperity would take care of other problems - has failed them.

"Chile woke up," thousands of protesters chanted one recent Sunday afternoon in Santiago's O'Higgins Park.

For a while, the promise seemed to be working. The country moved from dictatorship to democracy in 1990, and decades of economic growth and democracy followed, with one government peacefully replacing another.

But that growth did not reach all Chileans.

Inequality is still deeply entrenched. Chile's middle class is struggling with high prices, low wages, and a privatized retirement system that leaves many older people in bitter poverty. And a series of corruption and tax-evasion scandals have eroded faith in the country's political and corporate elite.

Video

The large anti-government protests in Chile have led to more than 1,000 injuries. Among the most common: those caused by pellet guns fired by security forces. Credit Credit... Tomas Munita for The New York Times

"This is a sort of legitimacy crisis," said Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, a political scientist at Diego Portales University in Santiago. "People start to say, 'O.K., why is it we have to pay that, and the very rich are not paying their fair share?"

"And at the same time, we have a political class that's totally out of touch," Mr. Kaltwasser added.

In an attempt to restore order, President Sebastián Piñera scrapped the four-cent subway fare increase that set off the initial demonstrations. Then he deployed the military in Chile's streets for the first time since the country's transition to democracy.

When that didn't quell the protests, Mr. Piñera went on television to ask for forgiveness and promise higher pensions, better health coverage, higher taxes for the rich and pay cuts for politicians. Later, he asked his cabinet to resign.

But demonstrators were not convinced.

At the protest in O'Higgins park, that was certainly the view of Luis Ochoa Pérez, who was selling flags near the entrance.

"The abuses haven't stopped," he said, "so we have to go into the streets."

His best-selling flag, of his own design, demanded Mr. Piñera's resignation.

Minutes later, it sold out.

Javiera López Layana, 24, an activist and student at the University of Chile who helped organize the protest, was buzzing with excitement.

Many of the speakers had used the term "el pueblo" when describing the Chilean people, she pointed out. To an outsider, it seemed like a tiny detail. But that term, which in Latin America is associated with the left, had been taboo in Chile for as long as Ms. López could remember. Its resurgence seemed as if it could be a harbinger of more significant change.

The end of the Pinochet dictatorship, in 1990, came with an implicit caveat: Military rule would end, but the socialist policies of Salvador Allende, the leftist president Gen. Augusto Pinochet had deposed in a coup, would not return. Subsequent governments preserved the extreme laissez-faire economic system imposed in the 1970s and 1980s.

But today, widespread public anger over the inequality and economic precarity that many Chileans see as a consequence of that system means that conservative economic policies may be more of a threat to political stability than a means of ensuring it.

"It's not 30 pesos, it's 30 years" has become one of the slogans of the protests - a reference to the proposed metro fare increase that set off the crisis and to the three decades since military rule ended.

The country's median salary is now about $540 per month - below the poverty line for a family of four, said Marco Kremerman, an economist with the Fundación Sol, a left-leaning think tank in Santiago. Median payments in the national private pension program, the only safety net for retirees, are about $200 per month.

There is broad agreement, among protesters and experts alike, that the country needs structural reforms. Replacing the current Constitution, which was adopted under the dictatorship, would also signify that Chile is emerging from the 30-year shadow of the Pinochet regime.

"When we're in debt, living in misery and impoverished, we don't necessarily think of the Constitution," Ms. López said. "But in the end, we need to make changes."

That evening, Ms. López and her family gathered around the kitchen table at their home in Lo Espejo, a working-class municipality far from the city center, and discussed the protest movement.

Seeing the military once again patrolling the streets had brought painful memories, long repressed, to the surface.

Ms. López's grandfather revealed to her, for the first time, that he had been arrested during the military regime, and his sister killed by the government, because they had hidden a leftist politician and his family, then helped them escape to safety abroad.

Her father described how dictatorship had divided Lo Espejo in his youth. One neighbor, who still lived nearby, was interrogated and tortured by a man they had both grown up with. Another had a sister who worked for DINA, the feared secret police.

In part because of those experiences, they have been cautious about joining the protests, even if they support the goals.

"Javiera's generation, they grew up without fear of the dictatorship," said Ms. López's mother, Pamela Inés Layana Guendelman. "She's fearless."

"I'm not afraid," Ms. López said.

"But it enrages me" she said, as tears welled in her eyes. "Every time I go to a protest in Plaza Italia, or a protest in La Alameda, I have to come back here, to Lo Espejo, and see the same crap, the same misery, that has been there for many governments. And nothing has changed at all."

In many ways, Ms. López personifies the contradictions of Chile's political crisis.

Her parents and grandfather strained to send her to private schools, she was the first in her family to go to college, and she now hopes to attend graduate school. At least on paper, Ms. López seems to be a success story, proof of the benefits that hard work is supposed to bring under Chile's free-market system.

But when she reached the University of Chile, she said, she confronted an educational system that seemed designed to keep her in Lo Espejo forever. Though a scholarship covered much of her tuition, she has still had to borrow money to complete her degree. Getting a master's will mean borrowing even more.

"Education was supposed to be our ladder out of poverty," she said. "But the debt turns out to be a heavy backpack." Her background may also dilute the value of her degree: Employers are widely believed to discriminate against candidates from poorer social classes.

Families like hers have become a new constituency in Chile, one that has sacrificed to succeed in a supposedly meritocratic system, only to find that they are still excluded from its benefits.

"There is this discourse of merit, of striving, of how 'you should get up earlier,'" she said. "But even if we get up early, nothing is going to change."

One recent day, at the near-shuttered University of Chile, as clouds of tear gas billowed outside, student leaders scrolled through Instagram and Twitter posts announcing demonstrations.

"We are the generation for whom the joy never came," said one of them, Nicole Martínez, 26. Her words were a bitter twist on "joy is coming," the slogan from the campaign that ended military rule.

But the Chilean political crisis is not unique to Chile. It carries unmistakable echoes of a problem that is at the center of political conflict all over the developed world.

As free trade, new technologies, the rise of China, and other seismic changes have reshaped the world's economies, political divisions have emerged between those who gain from the current system and those who do not.

In much of Europe and the United States, onetime industrial towns declined as economic growth accrued to large, globally connected cities, instead. For many, even those who have seen modest objective improvements in their own standards of living, watching others surge ahead while they struggle has left them feeling angry and disillusioned. In many countries, trust in institutions is falling, surveys show.

The same economic changes have shattered longstanding political coalitions, weakening mainstream parties. Far-right populists and other outsider politicians have moved to fill the vacuum left behind.

And with no effective channels for public anger, mass frustration has erupted into protest movements like France's Yellow Vests and the demonstrations in Chile.

The Chilean movement, like the Yellow-Vest movement, has no clear leaders, said Ms. Martínez, with information mostly spreading through people's social networks.

"It is a social explosion," she said.

Pascale Bonnefoy contributed reporting.

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'Chile Woke Up': Dictatorship's Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests

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SANTIAGO, Chile - The suddenness of the protests, the anger that spilled onto the streets every day, might have been surprising anywhere. But in the country often lauded as Latin America's great economic success story, it has shocked the world. For three weeks, Chile has been in upheaval.

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Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar in the Netflix show 'Narcos'.

Pablo Escobar wakes up in a circular bed. He lights a joint, gets dressed and leaves his luxurious bedroom. His hit men stand behind the pink curtains. They clean their weapons, snort cocaine and feed the goldfish. One shows Escobar a story in that day's newspaper. "Did you get rid of the bodies?" Escobar asks. The hit man nods. His boss continues on his way through La Catedral, the jail he built for his own incarceration in 1991.

This scene is from the Netflix series Narcos, which has spent the first three seasons looking at one of the darkest chapters in Colombia's history - the focus shifts to Mexico in the fourth season. Like Escobar's biography, the production is full of details that inject color into the legacy of a man whose culture of fear and violence dominated the country from the 1980s to 1993, when he was assassinated.

According to Netflix, more than 60 million viewers have been enthralled by the eccentric details of Escobar's life, like his vast Hacienda Napoles ranch which was home to one of the largest zoos in Latin America. But what they were seeing was only one side of a very sordid story. The other belongs to Escobar's thousands of victims and their relatives.

For more than 15 years, Medellín - Escobar's stomping ground - was one of the most dangerous cities in the world. In 1991, the year the drug lord built his own prison in collusion with Colombian President César Gaviria in order to avoid extradition to the United States, there were 6,349 murders; in other words, 381 for every 100,000 inhabitants. La Catedral prison was, in effect, a luxurious estate from which Escobar ran his business with the authorities' blessing. This was how corrupt Colombia had become.

Escobar paid his hit men around €580 for each police officer they picked off. By end of the Medellin Cartel's reign in Colombia, 550 had met their deaths in this way. In 1991, more than 100 explosive devices went off in the city between September and December. Escobar's legacy was a river that ran with the blood of more than 5,000 victims who were killed between 1989 and 1993. Survivors do not believe that this is adequately conveyed either in Narcos or any other movie or series that has subsequently aired on the subject.

The fascination with the legend of Escobar has shifted attention away from his crimes. Frequently, the bizarre takes precedence over the tragic. Instead of looking at the damage he caused, the focus is on the fact that a town in the drug-infested region of Antioquia has the biggest concentration of hippopotamus outside of Africa - animals that, having escaped from Escobar's ranch, were left to roam wild instead of being transferred to a zoo. Or the odd anecdote of Escobar giving his daughter a unicorn for her birthday, fashioned from the severed wings of an ostrich and a horn nailed to a live pony, which died within days. Or the soccer matches with players from Colombia's national team. Or the parties where the piñatas were filled with dollars.

In the streets of Cartagena, street vendors still make a buck selling t-shirts emblazoned with Escobar's image. Narco-tours in Medellin may be less popular then they were but they still attract their share of tourists. And the Spanish speaking communities outside of Colombia have adopted the roster of insults - such as malparío, hijueputa, gonorrea - that fans of the Netflix show will be familiar with.

In the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Christmas 2016 was ushered in with a controversial billboard from Netflix that made reference to cocaine, as part of the promotion of the second season of the show. The company was forced to remove it after the Spanish authorities received complaints from the Colombian government.

In the face of this glorification, Escobar's victims' are seeking truth and justice and a balanced account of what really happened. Pablo Escobar ended up controlling 80% of the world's cocaine market. Almost 30 years later, Colombia is still the world's main producer of the drug. Land dedicated to the coca crop is expanding at an exponential rate, with more than 170,000 hectares planted to date, according to the United Nations. The country's last big cartel, the Golfo Clan, controls the border areas in order to smooth the way for narcotrafficking. And former FARC guerrillas still have to prove to the authorities that they did not come to an agreement with Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Mexico's former drug kingpin, to finance a 50-year conflict with profits from the drug trafficking routes between Colombia and Mexico.

In 2016, Medellín was no longer ranked among the world's 50 most violent cities. By 2017, the murder rate had fallen to 22 for every 100,000 inhabitants. "We need to remember," says Federico Gutiérrez, the city's mayor. "We must never forget the damage that drug trafficking and lawlessness did to us."

English version by Heather Galloway.

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Pablo Escobar wakes up in a circular bed. He lights a joint, gets dressed and leaves his luxurious bedroom. His hit men stand behind the pink curtains. They clean their weapons, snort cocaine and feed the goldfish. One shows Escobar a story in that day's newspaper. "Did you get rid of the bodies?"

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Venezuela is in crisis. On the verge of economic collapse, riots proliferate in the streets along with demands for an end to the populist, authoritarian government. Much of this anger is directed at President Nicolas Maduro - since his arrival to office in 2013, poverty rates in Venezuela have increased dramatically. Many struggle to provide for their families as food and medicine become scarce. Below are the top 10 facts about poverty in Venezuela that are essential to know.

Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Venezuela

1. Poverty in Venezuela is an epidemic. Nearly 90 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty. According to estimates by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, this is a dramatic increase from 2014 when 48 percent of Venezuelans lived in poverty. Maria Ponce is an investigator with the local universities researching the food shortage, and she stated that "this disparity between the rise in prices and the population's salaries is so generalized that there is practically not a single Venezuelan who is not poor."

2. Economic statistics are disappearing. In an attempt to stifle economic outrage, the Venezuelan government ceased publication of poverty statistics in 2015. It is now the responsibility of universities and sociologists to report on the current state of Venezuela and provide alternative sources of information. Luis Pedro España, a sociologist at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, estimates that up to 70 percent of households in Venezuela could fall below the poverty line this year. It would be the highest rate of poverty since statistic tracking began in 1980.

3. Venezuela is experiencing 'hyperinflation.' Venezuela is experiencing one of the worst inflation rates in history. According to Robert Renhack, deputy director of the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department, Venezuela "is one of the most severe hyperinflation situations that we've known about since the beginning of the 20th century." And the nation shows no sign of stopping. Currently, Venezuela's inflation rate sits at 27,364 percent, dooming those without savings or foreign aid to poverty.

4. Oil industries in Venezuela are crumbling. Many economists blame Venezuela's heavy reliance on oil exports for the poor economy. One of the world's largest exporters for oil, Venezuela was reported to possess 20 percent of the world's oil reserves in 2012. Since then, production of crude oil in Venezuela has dropped heavily. Global Data, a digital media company, has predicted that by the end of 2018, Venezuelan crude oil production would drop by one million barrels a day.

5. Government corruption is deeply rooted. Other economists blame deep political corruption and government mismanagement for Venezuela's poverty crisis. Despite months of protests, Maduro has recently cemented his power by replacing an opposition-controlled legislative branch of the government with loyalists. Since then, thousands of Venezuelans responsible for running the large oil exports have been fired or arrested in an act of power consolidation for Maduro. The White House has issued a statement reporting that President Trump refuses to speak to Maduro until "democracy is restored in that country."

6. Minimum wage in Venezuela is $6.13. In an attempt to control inflation, the minimum wage in Venezuela was recently raised 58 percent. Based on current exchange rates, this values at about $6.13. Yaimy Flores, a Caracas housewife, struggles to provide basic necessities for her family. Her household income, provided by her husband's minimum wage job as a janitor, is 5,196,000 bolivares a month. That is approximately $20. Much of the food they eat is dispersed from government programs and hygiene products are rationed. Despite working long hours in dire conditions, Venezuelans are barely scraping by on the minimum wage under heavy economic inflation.

7. Food crisis leads to "Maduro diet." Malnutrition is spreading. According to a recent survey, over two-thirds of Venezuelans report losing an average of 25 pounds in the last year and 61.2 percent of Venezuelans report going to bed hungry. Doctor Marianella Herrera states that "people are developing strategies to survive but not to feed themselves." Iron-rich foods, such as maize and vegetables, have been nearly eliminated from the Venezuelan diet while government food programs fail to end the hunger.

8. Medicine is running out. Due to the poor economy, Venezuela is experiencing a severe medicine shortage and hospitals are struggling to stay open. The Pharmaceutical Federation of Venezuela estimates the country is experiencing an 85 percent shortage of medicine. This has forced many Venezuelans to seek medication, often expired or unaffordable, on the black market. Meanwhile, President Maduro continues to refuse foreign humanitarian aid, blocking pharmaceutical shipments from entering the country.

9. Government food subsidies aren't enough. Iron-rich foods, such as maize and vegetables, have been nearly eliminated from the Venezuelan diet, and programs like CLAP - a government subsidized food box platform - fail to end the hunger. Initially, these packages included products like eggs, chicken and pasta and were distributed in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Originally a 'temporary measure,' these boxes have become a method to generate government dependency and supply nearly half of Venezuela's food requirements.

10. Venezuelans are fleeing the country. In the past two years, nearly one million Venezuelans have fled the struggling nation, one of the biggest migration crises in Latin American history after the mass exodus following Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. Many Venezuelans report they no longer feel safe in their home country and have lost hope in government officials.

A Fork in the Road

Poverty has encapsulated the nation with seemingly no end in sight. These top 10 facts about poverty in Venezuela aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the crisis in Venezuela and how it affects everything from inflation, to food and medicine.

Although the Venezuelan government still refuses to accept foreign aid, supporting local organizations in Venezuela allows for humanitarian aid to be distributed in poverty-stricken areas. As for the future, many Venezuelans envision only two possible directions: either Maduro leaves, or they do.
- Brooke Fowler

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Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Venezuela | The Borgen Project

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Venezuela is in crisis. On the verge of economic collapse, riots proliferate in the streets along with demands for an end to the populist, authoritarian government. Much of this anger is directed at President Nicolas Maduro - since his arrival to office in 2013, poverty rates in Venezuela have increased dramatically.

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The disorders of the synod only reflect the state of Christianity in the Amazon. The current situation is the fruit of a profound corruption of the missions begun more than half a century ago.

Return to the Past

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Franciscans and Jesuits did admirable work for the conversion of the Amerindian peoples by establishing the Reductions. Realizing that it was not possible to abruptly bring these peoples into contact with Europe without exposing them to numerous dangers, the missionaries established Christian villages that reproduced the native way of life, but transfigured by Catholicism. If we can speak of actual inculturation, it is in the best sense of the word.

Unfortunately, the appetite of the colonial powers put an abrupt stop to this splendid realization. The sorrowful circumstances surrounding this tragic end could lead one to believe that the Church shared the responsibility, which is not true. This sad episode left an indelible memory among the Jesuits.

The Society of Jesus, especially through the work of Fr. De Smet, successfully reproduced this type of evangelization in North America among the Indian tribes of the West. It had a similar fate, however, because of the betrayal of the American authorities.

Birth of Inculturation Theology

It was in Louvain that Fr. Pierre Charles (1883-1954), a companion of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, developed an original idea about the missions. He insisted on the need to penetrate the cultures of the evangelized populations by recognizing an intrinsic value in them. He paved the way for Joseph Masson (1908-1998), another Jesuit father who in 1962 was the first to use the term "inculturation." He said that "Western culture is by no means the only Christian culture possible," an understandable proposal.

In 1975, the 32nd General Congregation of Jesuits examined the term inculturation from a theological angle. The Jesuit General, Pedro Arrupe (1907-1991), in 1977 presented it to the Synod of Bishops, which officially adopted this term in its final document, Ad populum Dei nuntius.

On March 14, 1978, Fr. Aruppe gave a definition in his Letter on Inculturation: "Inculturation is the incarnation of the Christian life and message in a concrete cultural area, so that not only does this experience express itself with the proper elements of the culture in question, but also that this same experience is transformed into a principle of inspiration, at the same time the norm and force of unification, which transforms and recreates this culture." In the formula there is a certain danger: the establishment of a Catholicism divided by local cultures that have become inaccessible to each other. On December 7, 1990, John Paul II took up and popularized the term in his encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio.

The Implementation of Inculturation

On the ground, the missionaries did not wait. Thus, in 1952, a group of the Little Sisters of the Child Jesus, a congregation founded by Fr. Charles de Foucauld, settled in a Tapirapé village. At the time, there were 51 individuals from this tribe descending from the Topinambous, the ferocious warriors of the Brazilian coast who practiced cannibalism. The sisters were going to help them maintain their traditional rituals, based on shamanism, carefully avoiding any proselytism, i.e., any evangelization. No doubt it was a success, at least on the anthropological level.

Throughout the 1960s, Jesuit missionaries in the Amazon pursued a policy of contacts aimed at preserving cultural forms and isolating groups, without transmitting a foreign culture to them. The 1969 Indigenous Directory accentuates the ​​Aboriginal cultures and sets rules that progressively evolve towards multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism and Interculturalism

Picked up again by the Instrumentum laboris of the Roman synod, the terms multiculturalism and interculturalism are key terms for understanding the texts and their significance. If we follow the neo-missionaries, the culture is a central and unsurpassable value. For Fr. Paulo Suess, a German theologian, a key figure of liberation theology and more particularly of inculturation theology, participating in the synod on the Amazon, "all peoples and all social groups have a historical life plan" codified in their respective cultures, which defines their identity and creates a "second environment" (in addition to the physical environment) out of which "there is no salvation." This means that apart from their own culture, there is nothing to look for. One consequence is that the missionary's role with the Indians is reduced to accompanying their struggle against the cultural hegemony of the imperialist peoples who threaten them.

Fr. Suess continues: "The only rupture proposed by the Gospels is the break with infidelity to their own life plan." This means that the culture of each people must be jealously preserved among the Amazonian Indians, even if it is pagan and contains morally bad elements, such as infanticide. This is not an exaggeration. The Missionary Indigenist Council, which depends on the Brazilian Bishops' Conference, has defended the idea that the culture of the Amazonian peoples-which among some includes infanticide-is more important than the lives of the children sacrificed by this crime.

As a result, actual evangelization has been discarded for the benefit of the people and the promotion of intercultural dialogue. An emblematic case is that of Fr. Corrado Dalmonego, an anthropologist missionary invited as an expert to the Synod on the Amazon. Director of a mission among the Yanomami Indians of Brazil, he publicly rejoiced in the fact that no Indian had been baptized in this mission in its 53 years presence.

Thus, these false missionaries regard the culture as a kind of immanence, an inner value which is the sufficient source of their salvation. In doing so, they enclose the indigenous peoples in a sort of Amazon zoo, which they present as a kind of virgin land and homeland of the good savage, and even as a model for the West to put in place to save the endangered planet.

This is what Francis said to the natives gathered in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, on January 19, 2018: "Those of us who do not live in these lands need your wisdom and knowledge to enable us to enter into, without destroying, the treasures that this region holds, echoing the words of the Lord to Moses: 'put off the shoes from thy feet: for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground'" (Ex. 3:5).

Political Liberation, Not Evangelization

If the indigenous peoples of the Amazon exist and defend their rights today at the international level, it is certainly the result of the action of these modern missionaries. The Pan-Indian movement, which brings together 200 indigenous organizations, has in fact been structured through the action of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI). Never could a dusting of peoples spread over vast expanses have united and organized without the permanent intervention of this organism. The neo-missionaries have worked to protect their protégés from the forces threatening their existence and their territory.

Their ultimate demand is to put the Amazonian territory back into the hands of the indigenous peoples, under the control of a supranational authority, as evoked by Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato si' (no.175).

The situation of Catholicism in the Amazon is a perfect example of what misguided missionary action can bring about. What remains of the divine charity to which all the activity of the Church is subordinated? What has happened to the Faith, the evangelical morals, and the Christian mores which alone procured eternal?

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Missionaries' Betrayal of the Amazonian Lands

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The disorders of the synod only reflect the state of Christianity in the Amazon. The current situation is the fruit of a profound corruption of the missions begun more than half a century ago. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Franciscans and Jesuits did admirable work for the conversion of the Amerindian peoples by establishing the Reductions.

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Spain occupies most of the Iberian peninsula and also includes the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and small enclaves in Morocco: Ceuta and Mellila.
History
The North African Moors ruled most of the Iberian peninsula from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. In the far north, there arose powerful Christian local magnates with strong family alliances. From the eleventh century, during the period known as the Reconquista, these families gradually united against the Moors. In 1492 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, rulers of the two most powerful kingdoms, ended the Muslim presence in Spain.

The expulsion of an estimated 800,000 Jews and 3 million Muslims, and the persecution of Roma/Gypsies, enforced national unification through religious belief and orthodoxy, but local institutions survived. Spain embarked on three centuries of conquest in the Americas, during which time the separatist claims of the northern regions - each economically linked to different colonial possessions - grew. From the sixteenth century the colonial wealth was dissipated in internal religious and dynastic power struggles and in external wars. In 1714, when Bourbon rule was established following the War of the Spanish Succession (a civil and external war), the state was centralized. Occupation by French forces in the Napoleonic era strengthened this.

In 1823 Spain was incapable of defending its American colonies against the United States' Monroe Doctrine (that Latin America was a US sphere of interest). The Spanish-American War of 1898 against the United States, known as 'The Disaster', led to the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and a number of Pacific Islands to the United States. In the early twentieth century Spain took colonies in Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. But a badly planned invasion of Morocco led to defeat in 1921.

The monarchy was discredited and General Miguel Primo de Rivera set up a military dictatorship from 1923 to 1931. In 1931 the Second Spanish Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia and gave voting rights to women. However, regional autonomy was short-lived on account of the 1936-9 Civil War. The 1939 Nationalist victory was followed by rigorous centralization, the dismantling of regional authorities and brutal reprisals against dissent. The regime of General Francisco Franco banned every language and dialect other than Castilian, banned regional cultural manifestations, and imposed national unity in education and the media. Resistance turned violent after the Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) was formed in 1959. Catalan demands for autonomy also grew, but with less violence. These movements and the government response helped discredit right-wing politics and prepared the way for reform once General Franco died in 1975. The 1978 Constitution created a decentralized structure with autonomy for regions and communities.

From 1850 until the 1970s Spain was a country of emigration. In the twentieth century 6 million Spaniards emigrated. Until the 1930s the destination of choice was Latin America, especially Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Cuba. From the 1950s three-quarters of emigrants left for northern Europe under guest worker programmes. Many were obliged to return on account of the oil crises and economic recession of the 1970s. Tourism and industrialization were increasing in Spain at this time. The Spanish economy rapidly modernized and strengthened after Spain joined the European Union in 1986. Then Spain became a destination for high-income immigrants from other EU countries and for migrant labourers from North Africa and Latin America. In 1995 Spain applied the terms of the Schengen Convention, an open-border system between certain EU member states. Spain became a transit point for migrant workers wanting to enter the EU and travel north. The number of low-income immigrants increased rapidly from 1999, causing alarm among politicians, the media and the electorate.

The Franco era left a legacy of harsh policing. Spain has been criticized over the years by national and international human rights organizations for its police harassment of and brutality against Gypsies, new minorities, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants and Basque nationalists.
Peoples
Main languages: Castilian Spanish, Catalán, Valencià (Valencian), Euskadi (Basque), Galego (Galician)

Main religion: Roman Catholicism

Minority groups include: Catalans 7 million (15.8%), Galicians 2.8 million (6.3%), Basques 1.2 million (2.7%), Roma/Gypsies 650,000-800,000 (1.5-1.8%), Ecuadoreans 479,978 (1.1%), Moroccans 468,797 (1.1%), Romanians 308,856 (0.71%), Colombians 268,144 (0.62%), Asians 176,290 (0.41%) and Jews 20,000 (0.05%). Other Latin Americans number 693,451 (1.6%) and other Africans 194,359 (0.45%).

Catalans live in Catalonia in north-east Spain and in the Balearic Islands, Valencians south of Catalonia in Valencia, Galicians in Galicia in the north-west and Basques in the region on either side of the western Pyrenees, the majority in Spain.

Around 80 per cent of Spaniards state that their religion is Roman Catholicism.
New minorities
There are officially some 3.7 million non-citizens in Spain, with a further estimated 600,000 undocumented immigrants.

After Spain joined the European Union in 1985, industry, agriculture and services developed rapidly. Immigration became a problem from the 1990s and more particularly from 1999. Many of Spain's legal foreign residents are retired citizens from other EU countries, but these have now been overtaken in numbers by Latin Americans, and increasing numbers from Morocco and Eastern Europe, especially Romania. Some Romanian immigrants are Gypsies.

New minorities work mostly in the service sector (59 per cent) and in agriculture (21 percent). Most Latin Americans and Asians are involved in the service sector, while 39 per cent of Africans are employed in agriculture, and 15 per cent of East Europeans work in construction.

New minorities are most numerous in Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia and Madrid. The Canary Islands have become a destination for African boat people. There is considerable illegal immigration through Ceuta and Mellila.
Governance
The 1978 Constitution proclaims 'the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation', while recognizing and guaranteeing 'the right to autonomy of the nationalities and the regions'. The 'nationalities' are Catalonia, Euskadi (the Basque Country) and Galicia, all of which had majority votes for autonomy under the 1931 Constitution. Together with Andalusia, they have achieved autonomy under Article 151 of the 1978 Constitution.

Other regions negotiated autonomy statutes under Article 143, which gave reduced powers in comparison with Article 151. The constitutional court plays a crucial role in resolving disputes and in shaping the nature of the relationship between the 17 autonomous regions and central government.

Autonomy under Article 151 devolves education and housing policy to the regions. Some regions, such as the Balearic Islands, whose autonomy statutes derive from Article 143, have been able to increase their autonomy to gain full control over education.

The constitution guarantees civil rights and equality before the law without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

The 1985 Law on Foreign Status sets visa, residency and work permit quotas for temporary immigrant workers. Family reunification was not encouraged. Work permits could be renewed but, in practice, it was difficult for foreign workers to do so. Penalties for employers who hired undocumented workers were not enforced, leading to an increasing number of illegal immigrants. The 1996 law recognized immigrants' rights to equality, education and legal advice. It allowed regional governments to provide for the welfare of immigrant children. It established a permanent resident category and formally included family reunification within its framework.

Law 4/2000, adopted by the Socialist government, allowed for the integration of legal immigrants but it also allowed for the expulsion of illegal immigrants to their country of origin. It failed to address the difficulties for employers and immigrant workers in obtaining and renewing work permits. It also failed to take account of the difficulties of local authorities in establishing the country of origin of many undocumented immigrants. These problems remained, despite the more stringent Law 8/2000, passed without debate by the Popular Party government, and which came into force in January 2001. This made a clearer distinction between legal and illegal immigrants and withdrew education rights for the children of illegal immigrants. From 2001, agreements were signed with the governments of Ecuador, Colombia, Morocco, Dominican Republic, Nigeria, Poland and Romania to control immigration to Spain in the main sending countries.

Law 8/2000 and 4/2000 were both reformed in 2003, with measures making it easier to deport immigrants who committed crimes and giving police access to local authority records. The 2004 reform, effective in 2005, focused on reducing the black market economy and offered a regularization process for around 800,000 out of 1.2 million illegal immigrants.

Amnesties for illegal immigrants in 1986, 1991, 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2005 bear testimony to the ineffectiveness of immigration laws.

The autonomous regional and community authorities have set up departments to deal with immigrant affairs.

Children acquire Spanish citizenship automatically if one parent is Spanish, if they are born in Spain or one of their parents was born in Spain. Foreigners can take Spanish nationality if they have been living in Spain for 10 years, have adequate knowledge of the language, are integrated into society, have a certificate of good conduct from the police and renounce their previous nationality.

European Union Equal Treatment directives regarding race and employment were enacted in Spanish law in December 2003. The Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia was opened in March 2005 to track racism and propose measures against it. The creation of a Council to ensure the implementation of the EU directives was discussed in 2005 without further result.

The conservative Popular Party lost the general elections in 2004 partly because it blamed ETA for the March 2004 Madrid bombings, although initial evidence pointed to Al Qaeda. It had banned both ETA and the Basque separatist party Herri Batasuna in 2003, although party members kept their seats in the Basque regional parliament by changing the name of the party.
Minorities Resources Minority based and advocacy organisations
Acció Cultural Pais Valencia
Email:[email protected]
Website: www.acpv.net

HOEGOA [Basque] Centro de Documentación e Investigación, Facultad de Económica de la UPV
Website: http://www.hegoa.ehu.es
Valencianos
Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua
[official standardization organization)]
Tel: +34 96 387 4023
Website: http://www.avl.gva.es

ETXERAT (Association of Relatives of the Politically Repressed - part of Behatokia)
Email:[email protected]
Website: http://www.etxerat.info/
Roma/Gypsies Sources and further reading
Abellan, A.C., Marginalidad de la población gitana española, Murcia, Universidad de Murcia, 1992.

Collins, R., The Basques, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986.

Forsyth, M., Federalism and Nationalism, Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1989.

Gunter, R. (ed.), Politics, Society and Democracy: The Case of Spain, Oxford, Westview Press, 1993.

Liégeois, J.-P. and Gheorghe, N., Roma/Gypsies: A European Minority, London, MRG, 1995.

Medhurst, K., The Basques and Catalans, London, MRG, 1987.

Economic and Social Council of the Region of Murcia, La inmigración en la Región de Murcia, Murcia, Colección de Estudios CES, 1997.

Gimeno Jiménez, L., Actitudes hacia la inmigración. Relación entre las investigaciones cualitativas y cuantitativas, Madrid, Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2001.

Instituto de migraciones y Servicios Sociales, La inmigración y el asilo en España, Madrid, Ministry of Labor and Social Affaire, 1998.

Martín Díaz, E., Melis Maynar, A. and Sanz Casas, G., Mercados de trabajo e inmigración extracomunitaria en la agricultura mediterránea, Seville, Consejería de Asuntos Sociales de la Junta de Andalucía, 2001.

Amnesty International, Report 2006, section on Spain, retrieved 15 Dec. 2006, http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/esp-summary-eng

Lletra (Catalan literature website), Open University of Catalonia: http://www.lletra.net/

Raco Catala (online news and information service regarding all Catalan communities): www.racocatala.cat
Valencians
Climent-Ferrando, V., The Origins and Evolution of Language Secessionism in Valencia: An Analysis from the Transition Period until Today, Ciemen, 2005.

Colomina i Castanyer, J., Els valencians i la llengua normativa, Textos universitaris. Alacant: Institut de Cultura 'Juan Gil- Albert', 1995.

Galego org (online cultural information and links in Galician, Spanish and English): http://www.galego.org/index.html

Galego21.org (Galician software development forum): http://www.galego21.org/

Álvarez Blanco, R., Santamarina Fernández, A. and Fernández, F. (eds), Rei A Lingua Galega. Historia e Actualidade, Actas do I Congreso Internacional vols I-III, Santiago de Compostela, Consello da Cultura Galega/Instituto da Lingua Galega, 2005.

Jordán Cólera, C., Celtibérico, Zaragoza, 2005.

Martinez-Herrera, E., 'National extremism and outcomes of state policies in the Basque Country, 1979-2001', International Journal on Multicultural Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 2002.
Roma/Gypsies
Calin Rus (2004) 'The training of Roma/Gypsy school mediators and assistants', Council of Europe, retrieved 12 Oct. 2005, http://www.coe.int/t/e/cultural_co- operation/education/Roma-Gypsy_children/publication16_24EN.pdf

ECRI, Third Report on Spain, Council of Europe, 24 June 2005.

Fundación Secretariado Gitano, Población Gitana y Empleo - Un estudio comparado, 2005 (also available in English)

Copyright notice: © Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.

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United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

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Refworld | World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Spain

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In October 2015, MRG revised its World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples . For the most part, overview texts were not themselves updated, but the previous 'Current state of minorities and indigenous peoples' rubric was replaced throughout with links to the relevant minority-specific reports, and a 'Resources' section was added.

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La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días en El Mundo Hispano

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La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días en El Mundo Hispano

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An official branch (a small congregation) was organized in July 1956, missionaries began preaching in August, and a Church building was purchased in November. Prior to this, Latter-day Saint families living in Peru held group meetings. In 1959, when the Andes Mission was organized, there were 300 members in five congregations.

In January 1988, 32 years after missionary work began in Peru, seven stakes (diocese) were created in one weekend by a visiting Church Apostle, Elder M. Russell Ballard.

For Journalist Use Only
Guillermo Estrugo N.
Office: +511-3177045
Mobile: 51-998477530
E-Mail

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Statistics and Church Facts | Total Church Membership

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An official branch (a small congregation) was organized in July 1956, missionaries began preaching in August, and a Church building was purchased in November. Prior to this, Latter-day Saint families living in Peru held group meetings. In 1959, when the Andes Mission was organized, there were 300 members in five congregations.

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With a general strike and more protests across Catalonia, politicians in Madrid and Barcelona are feuding over how to maintain control over the region's streets.

Protestors clashed with police on the streets of Barcelona during a general strike on Friday. Credit... Pau Barrena/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

BARCELONA, Spain - The conflict with the restive northeastern region of Catalonia has entered a "new phase" with the sentencing of its former separatist leaders to prison this week, said Spain's caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.

By Friday, it was clear that phase had indeed begun, but not in the way that Mr. Sánchez had in mind.

The violence on the streets of Barcelona and other Catalan cities since the Spanish Supreme Court ruling on Monday has raised fears that Catalonia's separatist politicians are now losing control over their supporters, some of them growing increasingly radicalized.

On Friday, the Catalan independence movement delivered a new show of force in Barcelona. Five columns of separatist protesters marched from different parts of the region into the city amid a general strike. Friday afternoon's demonstration drew about 525,000 people, according to local police.

The large rally followed days of unrest in Barcelona and other Catalan cities to protest the jailing of nine separatist leaders over a failed bid to break away from Spain in 2017. The Socialist government of Mr. Sánchez has vowed to end the turmoil after protesters clashed with the police and set fires in the streets of Barcelona and other cities for four nights.

Video footage online showed protesters chanting, "Freedom for political prisoners!" outside the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, forcing the temporary closure of the basilica, which is one of the most emblematic and visited sites in Spain. The Catholic Church authorities said protesters had blocked the entrance, which meant access could no longer be guaranteed.

On Friday, protesters disrupted the region's transportation network, adding to the impact of a strike that had already forced the cancellation of many commuter trains and buses. They also erected barricades along major roads, including the main highway to France.

The general strike, however, was a mitigated success for the independence movement, with the authorities reporting that less than half of government employees had heeded the call to stay away from work.

Some of the main labor unions had refused to join the strike, arguing that it was driven by political ideology rather than justifiable economic complaints relating to labor conditions.

Working in tandem, the Spanish national police and the Catalan autonomous police have arrested several militants for violence over the past week, some of whom were then denied bail after appearing before a judge.

On Friday, Spain's national court also ordered the closure of a website run by Tsunami Democratic, a mysterious organization that is being investigated for suspected terrorism. It coordinated an attempt on Monday to shut down Barcelona's airport. In the end, airlines canceled more than 100 flights that day.

The airport intervention appeared to be a copycat of the occupation of Hong Kong's airport in August. Tsunami Democratic has also used language similar to that of the Hong Kong protesters, talking about its members adding up like drops of water.

Most of the separatist politicians have condemned the violence this week, among them Oriol Junqueras, the region's former deputy leader who got the toughest sentence of 13 years in prison.

The court ruling has also been increasing tensions within the fragile coalition of separatist parties that have held most of the seats in the Catalan regional parliament since 2015 without ever winning an election with an absolute majority.

On Thursday, Quim Torra, the leader of Catalonia, told the regional Parliament that he would organize a new independence referendum and draft a constitution for a Catalan republic. But separatist politicians from other parties immediately distanced themselves from his project.

In the Spanish capital Madrid, the latest unrest in Catalonia is exacerbating political tensions and overshadowing campaigning ahead of a repeat national election on Nov. 11. Mr. Sánchez and his Socialist party have been leading in the opinion polls, but further unrest in Catalonia could help swing voters.

Since Monday, the Socialist government has been calling on Mr. Torra to condemn more forcefully acts of violence in Catalonia and also to demonstrate that he and other elected Catalan politicians are not supporting the new wave of militancy embodied by Tsunami Democratic.

In the run-up to the national election, Mr. Sánchez is facing increasing pressure from opposition, center-right parties to use his emergency powers to restore order in Catalonia, possibly even imposing another period of direct rule from Madrid over Catalonia as happened in late 2017.

On Thursday, Mr. Sánchez told reporters that "moderation calms minds and this is what the government of Spain will do."

On Friday, however, Pablo Casado, the leader of the main opposition Popular Party, responded that Mr. Sánchez needed instead to act "with urgency" in Catalonia before the situation spiraled out of control.

Some of the demonstrators who reached Barcelona around lunchtime Friday had left their hometowns as early as Wednesday. They marched into the city amid a festive atmosphere reminiscent of many of the big protests in recent years in Barcelona, and in contrast to several of the evening clashes earlier this week, when some hooded militants also threw Molotov cocktails at the police. However, by early evening, militants and police officers starting a fresh confrontation outside police headquarters, with officers charging against activists who were throwing flares, bottles and eggs.

Separately on Friday, Carles Puigdemont, the former separatist leader of Catalonia, turned himself in to the authorities in Belgium after a Spanish judge issued a European arrest warrant this week. But he vowed to fight Spain's latest attempt to extradite him and try him in Madrid.

Mr. Puigdemont, who was not detained by prosecutors in Brussels on Friday, fled to Belgium in October 2017 when Madrid forced him from office. Since then, Mr. Puigdemont has successfully fought extradition from Belgium and Germany, where judges rejected a Spanish claim that he had led a rebellion.

Spanish prosecutors now want Belgium to return Mr. Puigdemont to Spain to face trial on charges of sedition rather than rebellion. A Spanish judge issued a European arrest warrant for Mr. Puigdemont on Monday, hours after the Supreme Court sentenced the other Catalan former separatist leaders for sedition. They were given prison terms of nine to 13 years.

Three other separatist leaders were sentenced for the lesser crime of disobedience during the events two years ago.

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Catalonia Protesters, Slipping the Reins of Jailed Leaders, Grow More Radicalized

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With a general strike and more protests across Catalonia, politicians in Madrid and Barcelona are feuding over how to maintain control over the region's streets. BARCELONA, Spain - The conflict with the restive northeastern region of Catalonia has entered a "new phase" with the sentencing of its former separatist leaders to prison this week, said Spain's caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.

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The social reforms agenda presented by President Sebastián Piñera to ease the Chileans' discontent is insufficient.

By

Carlos Peña is the president of the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile.

Demonstrators gathered in Plaza Baquedano in Santiago, Chile, for a seventh day of protests on Thursday. Credit... Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile - In the past week Chile has been gripped by a wave of fury and indignation. Chileans of all ages have poured into the streets armed with kitchenware,banging pots to demand reforms - Latin America's traditional cacerolazo form of protest. Demonstrations have been both violent and peaceful, leading the government to declare a curfew in some parts of the country and a state of emergency. Troops have been deployed to restore order for the first time since Chile returned to democracy 30 years ago. At least 18 people have died so far and thousands have been arrested. The illusion of Chile as an oasis in a convulsed region has cracked.

It began with a series of protests at the Instituto Nacional in Santiago, one of the country's most prestigious state schools. For months now students have demanded more resources for the school and reforms to the education system. Then on Oct. 6, the government led by Sebastián Piñera - the center-right politician-businessman who returned to the presidency after an election victory in 2017 - put into effect an increase in subway rates, setting off a wave of protests that have unmasked rampant class inequality and corruption.

On Tuesday, Mr. Piñera issued an apology and proposed a set of social reforms, but demonstrators remained in the streets setting barricades and union leaders called for a two-day general strike, while human rights organization s denounced the use of excessive force by the security forces.

Chile, one of the most competitive nations in Latin America, is undergoing a crisis of disillusionment.

A recent study revealed that while the middle class has increased, 1 percent of the population in Chile holds 25 percent of the wealth generated in the country. Until recently the promise of economic stability, poverty reduction, expansion of consumption and growth of the middle class had given many a reason to feel optimistic. And yet inequality remains a legacy the country can't seem to shake. Mr. Piñera campaigned on the promise that " better times are coming," but he is facing an economic slowdown and the World Bank has lowered growth expectations for this year and next. The illusion of permanent growth has been ripped apart and that rupture is fueling the fire of disappointment that has erupted in the last week.

In the years after the dictatorship ended in the 1990s, Chile had experienced an optimistic era of democratization and modernization that reduced poverty from 30 percent to 6.4 percent in 17 years. Left- and right-wing presidents have alternated in recent decades, but new generations remain mistrustful of those in power, demanding greater equality and a broader and more inclusive social welfare system, as well as reforms to the pension system - which until now has been tied to the individual's career path and capacity for savings - and to the health care and education systems.

The generation born into a democratic Chile that are now demanding change are children of the discontent that the expansion of the middle class, and with it consumption, kept at bay. The crowds of demonstrators are not guided by parties or visible movements, and they lack a clear set of objectives. They are more united by a common abhorrence of inequality, and their agenda, with a focus on issues such as greater diversity and better protection of the environment, directly clashes with that of their predecessors, those who lead the country.

On Oct. 22, Mr. Piñera appeared before the press and announced a series of social reforms, among them immediate improvement of pensions, subsidies for medicines, the creation of a guaranteed minimum income, aimed at diffusing the protests.

Will these social programs solve the crisis and put out the fervor? It's a promising agenda, but it's insufficient in the long term. Chile is experiencing social unrest, but also a cultural and political crisis. Mr. Piñera must promote a more peaceful and effective dialogue without sacrificing the democratic process. This is the first step toward healing the wounds of inequality.

Until a few days ago, Chile was an exceptional example of welfare and building institutions in Latin America. Today, it cannot tolerate the temptation of violence after overcoming the repressive and bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The Chilean government must remain committed to democratic mechanisms, including negotiating with political opposition forces, appeal to the generation of young Chileans who represent the country's future, advancing social reforms, defending civil liberties, and ensuring economic growth. It's not easy to do all that at once, but otherwise the wound will remain open.

Carlos Peña is a lawyer, philosopher and president of the Universidad Diego Portales. This article was translated from the Spanish by Erin Goodman.
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | Trouble in Paradise: Chile's Inequality Explodes

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The social reforms agenda presented by President Sebastián Piñera to ease the Chileans' discontent is insufficient. By Carlos Peña is the president of the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile. SANTIAGO, Chile - In the past week Chile has been gripped by a wave of fury and indignation.

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About 350,000 people have protested in Barcelona over the jailing of separatist leaders from Spain's Catalonia region, police say.

The peaceful march was also organised to underline support for Catalonia's independence movement.

A separate demonstration by a direct action group turned violent on Saturday evening, as protesters targeted the police headquarters.

Spanish unionists plan to hold their own mass rally in the city on Sunday.

Catalan crisis in 300 words

Nine separatist leaders were jailed on 14 October by Spain's Supreme Court for between nine and 13 years after being convicted of sedition.

The days that followed saw some of the worst violence in the history of the modern independence movement, which prides itself on its peaceful tactics.

What happened on Saturday?

Grassroots independence groups had urged independence supporters to fill the streets but said they were committed to peaceful protests, Reuters news agency reports.

A sea of protesters stretched from the city's waterfront to the landmark Sagrada Familia church.

"It is time to sit down and talk," one protester told Reuters. "I think it is time for the state to find a solution because it seems that this has no end and we are always at the same point. We have come here because we are fed up with so much repression that we have suffered from the state."

"We have always defended non-violence," said another. "What is happening in Barcelona is not a reflection of us, we separatists are not violent, we want our country, we want to be free."

The day had begun with a gathering of mayors from across Catalonia to endorse the campaign for self-determination.

Mayors of 814 out of the region's 947 local authorities gathered at the regional government's headquarters to meet Catalan President Quim Torra.

As the mayors chanted "independence", Mr Torra said Catalans must unite to oppose "repression" and "force the Spanish state to talk".

Later on Saturday, a pro-independence group that favours direct action organised a protest outside the police headquarters in the city. Demonstrators threw balls, bottles and stones at riot police.

Riot police later moved to disperse the crowds, armed with shields and batons and backed by riot vans.

Projectiles were fired during the clashes and at least six people were hospitalised with injuries, according to Reuters news agency.

On Sunday, politicians from Spain's two main centre-right parties, the Popular Party and Ciudadanos, are expected to attend the unionist rally, which comes two weeks before the Spanish general election.

Meanwhile, supporters of the far-right Vox party rallied in the Spanish capital Madrid on Saturday to hear calls for a harder line on the separatists.

Party leader Santiago Abascal attacked Spain's mainstream parties, including the ruling Socialists, telling the crowd: "Faced with criminal separatism, there is only Vox!"

How bad were the clashes earlier this month?

Rioters threw paving stones and petrol bombs while police fired baton rounds and used truncheons.

Cars and other property were damaged as fires were lit in the streets of Barcelona and other towns.

Between 14 and 20 October, 593 people, including 226 police officers, received treatment for injuries as a result of the protests, according to regional emergency services.

The Spanish authorities later updated the number of officers injured to 289.

Why is there a crisis in Catalonia?

Successive Spanish governments have refused to grant separatists in Catalonia a referendum on independence, which became a live issue again after the global financial crisis of 2008.

Spurred on by the results of an unrecognised plebiscite in November 2014, separatists held an illegal referendum in October 2017, which Spain tried to prevent by force, eventually jailing the separatist leaders.

Catalonia's quarrel with Spain explained

While the separatists regularly attract massive shows of public support, they have only a slim majority in the regional parliament and a recent survey suggests Catalonia's residents oppose independence by about 48% to 44%.

Catalonia has its own language and distinctive traditions, and a population nearly as big as Switzerland's (7.5 million). It is one of Spain's wealthiest regions, making up 16% of the national population and accounting for almost 19% of Spanish GDP.

The EU has treated the crisis as an internal matter for Spain, deaf to the separatists' pleas for support, but there have been warnings that the issue is damaging Spain's democratic credentials.

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Separatist protest draws 350,000 in Barcelona

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About 350,000 people have protested in Barcelona over the jailing of separatist leaders from Spain's Catalonia region, police say. The peaceful march was also organised to underline support for Catalonia's independence movement. A separate demonstration by a direct action group turned violent on Saturday evening, as protesters targeted the police headquarters.

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In the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith Jr. retired to the woods near his home in Palmyra, New York, and offered a simple prayer. This humble prayer set into motion a series of events that brought forth The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from its obscure beginnings in upstate New York to a worldwide church. In Lima the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a temple located in the district of La Molina.

Growth of the Church (information from the churches website)

According to the National Council of Churches, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the second-fastest-growing church in the United States. However, despite its increasing numbers, the Church cautions against overemphasis on growth statistics. The Church makes no statistical comparisons with other churches and makes no claim to be the fastest-growing Christian denomination despite frequent news media comments to that effect. Such comparisons rarely take account of a multiplicity of complex factors, including activity rates and death rates, the methodology used in registering or counting members, and what factors constitute membership. Growth rates also vary significantly across the world. Additionally, many other factors contribute to the strength of the Church, most especially the devotion and commitment of its members.

It took 117 years-until 1947-for the Church to grow from the initial six members to one million. Missionaries were a feature of the Church from its earliest days, fanning out to Native American lands, to Canada, and, in 1837, beyond the North American continent to England. Not long after, missionaries were working on the European continent and as far away as India and the Pacific Islands. The two-million-member mark was reached just 16 years later, in 1963, and the three-million mark in eight years more. This accelerating growth pattern has continued with about a million new members now being added every three years or less. Growth consists both of convert baptisms and natural growth through the birth of children. Church membership today is over 14 million.

Missionary Program (information from the churches website)

More than 52,483 missionaries are serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at any one time. Most are young people under the age of 25, serving in nearly 340 missions throughout the world. Missionaries can be single men between the ages of 19 and 25, single women over the age of 21, or retired couples. Missionaries work with a companion of the same gender during their mission, with the exception of couples, who work with their spouse. The number of Church-service missionaries serving was 20,813, many of whom live at home and are called to support a variety of Church functions. Single men serve missions for two years and single women serve missions for 18 months.

Missionary work is voluntary. Missionaries fund their own missions-except for their transportation to and from their field of labor-and are not paid for their services. Contacts with family and friends during this time of service are limited to letters and occasional phone calls to family at special times. Missionaries avoid entertainment, parties, or other activities common to this age-group as long as they are on their missions so they can focus entirely on the work of serving and of teaching others the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Temples (information from the churches website)

The sacredness of the temple anciently can be seen in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, Moses had the children of Israel carry with them the Tabernacle (a large, portable temple) as they wandered in the wilderness. King Solomon built and dedicated the great temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. It was rebuilt and later substantially expanded, but it was again destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. The great Western Wall can still be seen in Jerusalem today, and even after millennia, it remains a sacred site for Jews. The New Testament gives an account of Jesus Christ clearing the temple when its sacredness was violated by people using its courts as a common market.

Temples point Latter-day Saints to Jesus Christ and their eventual life with Him, their Heavenly Father, and their family members on the condition of faithfulness to Christ's teachings. In a modern-day revelation, Joseph Smith received direction to build a temple in Kirtland, Ohio (dedicated in 1836). Later he was instructed to build a temple in Nauvoo, Illinois (1846). So important were temples to early Church members that within days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young selected the site of the Salt Lake Temple. There are 166 temples throughout the world either in operation, under construction, or announced.

Organizational Structure of the Church (information from the churches website)

The Church is led by 15 Apostles. The most senior Apostle is the President of the Church, and he selects two other Apostles as counselors. These three function as the First Presidency, which is the highest governing body of the Church. Twelve others form the Quorum of the Twelve-the second-highest governing body of the Church. Together, the First Presidency and the Twelve oversee the entire Church. Church members trace this organizational structure to the New Testament.

All of the Apostles are regarded by Church members as "special witnesses" of Jesus Christ throughout the world. They travel frequently, addressing and encouraging large congregations of members and interested nonmembers and meeting with local leadership.

Leaders called Seventies-another New Testament office-assist the Twelve Apostles and serve in various locations throughout the world. There are currently eight quorums of the Seventy. Each quorum may have up to 70 members. Some Seventies are assigned to headquarters administrative functions, but most live and work within a specific geographic region of the Church.

The leader of a congregation is called a bishop. His administrative "parish" is called a ward. A group of wards forms a stake, and the leader of a stake is a stake president. "Stake" is not a term found in the New Testament but is taken from Old Testament tent imagery in which the "tent," or church, is held up by supporting stakes. Stake presidents and bishops are the leaders most commonly encountered by the broad membership of the Church. These leaders are unsalaried and have a significant amount of local autonomy.

Street: Av. Javier Prado Este 6420

District: La Molina

Region: Lima

Phone: (+511) 612-7200

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - LimaEasy

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In the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith Jr. retired to the woods near his home in Palmyra, New York, and offered a simple prayer. This humble prayer set into motion a series of events that brought forth The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from its obscure beginnings in upstate New York to a worldwide church.

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Después del desmantelamiento de los grandes carteles de la droga en Colombia, el negocio del narcotráfico en el país entró en una nueva etapa mucho más difícil de combatir y tan lucrativa como en la época del auge de los carteles de Medellín y Cali.

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexicans say corruption is falling even as a third of them also report paying a bribe, a survey by Transparency International said on Monday, as the 10-month-old administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sets its sights on stamping out graft.

The Global Corruption Barometer 2019 report shows that 44% of Mexicans say corruption has increased over the last year, compared with 61% of Mexicans in 2017.

Veteran leftist Lopez Obrador took office in December promising to root out the entrenched corruption, poverty and violence afflicting Latin America's second-largest economy.

A majority of Mexicans, 61% of those polled, said Lopez Obrador was doing a "good" or "very good" job of fighting corruption. Only 24% said the same thing about his predecessor, former president Enrique Pena Nieto, in the 2017 report.

In line with that, one of every five respondents said corruption in Mexico decreased over the last year, versus only 6% of those surveyed in the 2017 poll.

Still, nine of 10 Mexicans surveyed by the anti-graft group "underscored that corruption remains a problem for the country, although they perceive changes compared to previous years," the report showed.

Some 34% of those polled said they had paid a bribe over the past 12 months to access public services, down from 51% in 2017.

Pollster Ipsos conducted 1,000 face-to-face interviews in Mexico between Feb. 26 and March 9 for the Transparency International report.

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white collar crime / fraud / corporate crime

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Mexicans say corruption is falling, even as a third still paid bribes

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Mexicans say corruption is falling even as a third of them also report paying a bribe, a survey by Transparency International said on Monday, as the 10-month-old administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sets its sights on stamping out graft.

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Research underway on NMT in Mexico (institutional set up, policy framework and reality for pedestrians and cyclists) with NMT policy development for two cities planned for completion by end of 2018

Background
At present, Mexican cities are dominated by motorized modes and recent estimates suggest an alarming trend in increased use of private cars, the vehicle fleet may reach 70 million vehicles in 2030. Thus, challenges of traffic congestion and air pollution resulting especially from an old vehicles fleet and lack of investments in NMT experienced in Mexico City, are replicated throughout the country.
National Commitments
On average, Mexicans spend 2 hours per day in transport (Source: Mario Molina Centre), time which is not only lost to social lives, but also results in economic losses. According to a study by ITDP in 2012, the negative externalities of congestion, local pollution, noise, emissions of greenhouse gases and car accidents in five metropolitan areas of Mexico (Valley of Mexico, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Puebla-Tlaxcala and Leon) that constitute 42% of the urban population and 40% of the vehicle fleet of the country; generated a social cost equal to 4% of the total GDP of these cities.

In 2007, in response to the significant challenges, Mexico City developed the Green Plan (Plan Verde), which included programmes on transportation and mobility. Together with an Integrated Urban Transportation Programme and a bicycle mobility strategy, the city has focused on the development of mass transit and NMT (Pearl, 2015). The goals included the following:
Local commitments

Improve the quality and availability of public transportation

Lower the number of private vehicles on the roads

Promote NMT

Speed up mobility on the road

Foster a road culture that respects cyclists and pedestrians

On a regular basis since 2007, part of the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City, the biggest city centre street, was closed to cars to provide space for pedestrians and cyclists as part of the "Muévete en bici" (Bike Move). This event has grown to become the fifth largest car-free day in Latin America, with 48 km of streets closed to motorized traffic (City Fix). In 2008 the Ministry of Environment opened a Non-Motorized Mobility Strategy Office to coordinate the building of better bike infrastructure, integrating cycling into the wider transport system, creating a cycling culture, and increasing access for all the city's residents to cycling. Pedestrianization of the city's historical centres and neighbourhoods began in 2010. Cycling-infrastructure was introduced as part of the "Programa de Corredores de Movilidad No Motorizada" (Non-Motorized Lanes Programme), adding 31 km of bicycle lanes.
Share the Road support
"Ecobici" public bicycle system (bike-share) is one of the success stories of promoting sustainable uses of transport. The public bike share system was launched in 2010 as part of the city's Bicycle Mobility Strategy and NMT Master Plan of Mexico City. It began operations with 85 stations and currently has 444 with a coverage area of 32 km. EcoBici users are surveyed and the system evaluated every year. It counts around 30,000 uses during weekdays and it has been used 36 million times since 2010 (Source: Ecobici website) and makes it the 4th biggest public bike share scheme in the world.

Working with local partner World Resource Institute Mexico and the UN Environment country office in Mexico, Share the Road has commenced the support for Mexico in the development of NMT policies. Methodology for research has been completed, along with stakeholder engagement. The research on NMT in Mexico (institutional arrangements, policy framework and the reality for pedestrians and cyclists) is ongoing and the two cities chosen for support are Aguascalientes and Oaxaca. This will be followed by NMT policy development completion by end of 2018.

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Research underway on NMT in Mexico (institutional set up, policy framework and reality for pedestrians and cyclists) with NMT policy development for two cities planned for completion by end of 2018 Background At present, Mexican cities are dominated by motorized modes and recent estimates suggest an alarming trend in increased use of private cars, the vehicle fleet may reach 70 million vehicles in 2030.

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Mario Rosales is organising travel arrangements for his latest clients, a Honduran woman and her two primary school-aged children hoping to reach the United States.

Rosales, 47, a coyote, or people smuggler, sends their photos via WhatsApp to his contact in the Mexican National Immigration Institute (INM) in order to obtain fake identity cards - all part of the family's travel package, which costs $1,800 per person to traverse about half (1,750km) of the region's most dangerous migration route.

Rosales (not his real name), is one of 10 or so coyotes operating in La Técnica, a tiny border town in north-west Guatemala, where hundreds of migrants from Central America and the Caribbean cross into Mexico every week, despite a crackdown orchestrated by the US.
Migrants brave the 'Beast' as Mexico cracks down under US pressure
Seeking to avert crippling trade tariffs threatened by Donald Trump, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has deployed a newly created national guard across the country to stop the migrant flow. Checkpoints have sprung up along major roads, and immigration officials have raided migrant shelters.

This week, Mexico's president declared the plan a success after apprehending around 108,500 migrants during the first half of 2019 - a 70% increase compared with the same period last year.

Migration always drops off in the hot summer months, but US figures also showed a dramatic fall.

Meanwhile in Guatemala, US federal authorities including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and intelligence agents are being deployed to dismantle smuggling networks, as part of the controversial "safe third country" agreement with the US.

But despite the clampdown, huge numbers of people continue to travel north - aided by Mexico's booming migration industry, a multi-faceted array of networks including coyotes, corrupt officials, crooks and concerned citizens.

diptych of boats

Local aid workers estimate that 70% of migrants crossing the porous 871km Mexico-Guatemala border travel with coyotes - or "guides", as they prefer to be known - but the quality of service varies wildly.

Rosales prides himself on providing a safe passage and says he sympathises with the migrants' plight: he previously lived as an undocumented migrant in Los Angeles, and along with his girlfriend was once kidnapped in Veracruz, trying to reach the US.

He works with a tightly knit group of associates, who move small groups of people by car and plane, providing - he claims - three decent meals a day. (Other coyotes guide larger groups and subcontract out dozens of short journeys to truck, bus and taxi drivers.)
Mexican kidnappers pile misery on to Central Americans fleeing violence
With his latest clients, Rosales will accompany the Honduran family across the River Usumacinta in a small motorised boat, to Frontera Corozal in Chiapas, Mexico. He'll then drive them 300km to Villahermosa airport in the neighbouring state of Tabasco.

Mexican migration and security forces - including state and local police, the navy, army and national guard - patrol the highways which Rosales will drive, but the group will not be stopped. Rosales sends his contacts the travel schedule, and photos of the car and his clients, to guarantee a blind eye.

"Everyone gets paid, so I never have problems," said Rosales, who claims to spend 70% of what he earns on bribes. "The national guard are the same agents in different uniforms, still willing to make a deal." (An INM spokesperson said corruption was not tolerated and every allegation investigated.)

From Villahermosa, the family will use their new ID cards to fly to Reynosa, a Mexican border city notorious for warring cartels and clandestine graves. Here, more associates will be waiting to guide them as they apply for asylum or cross the border illegally.

Rosales allowed that the current crackdown had reduced demand, forcing him to cut prices, but history shows that such declines rarely last. Last year's migrant caravans were also bad for business, until travellers stuck in Tijuana started contracting his team to take them through less congested border crossings.

Rosales lives a comfortable life in La Técnica, which is thriving thanks to the money migrants spend on hotels, showers, food and transport. But not everyone is in it for the money.

'May God bless you': evangelical pastors' hidden role in human smuggling's boom

Filomena Barrera, 67, a retired nurse and committed Catholic, has been providing safe haven for migrants since 2002. She offers free bed and board for the most desperate families, letting them sleep in her grown-up daughter's old room.

Barrera, who has a constant tremor because she cannot afford to treat her Parkinson's disease, has hosted countless migrants over the years. "I look easygoing, but I am brave, and would do anything to save these poor people."

Across the river, the indigenous Chol community in Frontera Corozal is sustained by two groups of people: the tourists flocking to the nearby Mayan archaeological site Yaxchilan - and the migrants.

At about 11am, Noé Pino, 29, leans on his taxi waiting for migrants who often cross during peak tourist traffic to avoid detection. He picks up a Honduran man with a suitcase and drops him off at the junction with Highway 307, which heads north-west.

At the crossroad, groups of migrants come and go in taxis, combis and on foot. Pino - not his real name - points out a man as he gets out of a tourist minivan to buy a cold soda. "He's a pollero [coyote]. He dropped off one group last night, now he's going back for the next," said Pino.

Pino knows that because he also worked last night, after receiving a call at 12.30am to pick up four migrants at the river and drop them in Palenque. It was a "typical night", according to Pino, with five taxis and eight minivans, each holding 15 passengers, subcontracted by smugglers.

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Central American migrants try to agree a price with a local taxi driver for the journey from Frontera Corozal to Palenque, Chiapas. Photograph: Encarni Pindado/The Guardian

Pino says he doesn't fret about encountering migration or security agents because they're paid off in advance. But the road north is plagued by armed bandits, and he narrowly survived a gun attack in 2015 which left him traumatized and off work for six months.

En route, Pino advises migrants to erase messages discussing the journey from their phones, but apart from that, he avoids conversation with clients.

"I don't get involved - I just do my job."

At the crossroads,a group of s even children and six adults from Honduras arrive in taxis from the river. They seem nervous and disorientated, unsure what to do next or who to ask for advice.

"I honestly don't know where we're going, just that we're going," said a skinny 16-year-old, who asked not to be named.

The group mills about outside the general store in silence, until a toddler starts crying and tugs on his mother's sleeve, demanding his favourite toy car. As she digs inside a plastic bag full of their belongings, a navy patrol jeep parks across the road to question a man. It's the national guard, searching for migrants.
Topics

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'Everyone gets paid': Mexico's migration networks are thriving despite crackdown

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Mario Rosales is organising travel arrangements for his latest clients, a Honduran woman and her two primary school-aged children hoping to reach the United States.

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GDP, PPP (current international)

$2,509,672,653,825 (2018)

GDP Growth Rate (annual %)

1.994% (2018)

GDP Per Capita, PPP (current international)

$19,888 (2018)

Click on a row to display its 5-year graph on the right.

GDP Composition %

Note: GDP composition percentage may exceed 100. Manufacturing is included in the Industry figures and is also reported separately because it plays a critical role in many economies.

Inflation, consumer prices (annual %)

4.899% (2018)

External debt stocks, total (DOD, current US$)

$452,991,160,482 (2018)

Total tax rate (% of commercial profits)

55.1% (2019)

Real Interest Rate (5 year average %)

2.644% (2018)

Manufacturing, value added (% of GDP)

17.037% (2018)

Current Account Balance (BoP, current US$)

($21,642,734,310) (2018)

Click on a row to display its 5-year graph on the right.

Labor Force, Total

57,558,589 (2019)

Employment in Agriculture (% of total employment)

12.868% (2019)

Employment in Industry (% of total employment)

25.893% (2019)

Employment in Services (% of total employment)

61.239% (2019)

Unemployment Rate

3.378% (2019)

Click on a row to display its 5-year graph on the right.

Imports of goods and services (current US$)

$502,980,529,658 (2018)

Exports of goods and services (current US$)

$480,015,559,589 (2018)

Total Merchandise Trade (% of GDP)

75.759% (2018)

FDI, net inflows (BoP, current US$)

$36,871,129,000 (2018)

Commercial Service Exports (current US$)

$28,575,726,719 (2018)

Click on a row to display its 5-year graph on the right.

Note: Percentile ranks are calculated using the latest available data for all countries within the last 5 years.

How to interpret the graph: The purpose of this graph is to take a snapshot of a country's economy in comparison to other economies. For example, Mexico's Exports rank is higher than (please wait...) of the countries in the dataset. For Exports, FDI and GDP measures, a higher rank (closer to 100%) indicates a stronger economy. Conversely, for Unemployment and Inflation, a lower rank (closer to 0%) indicates a stronger economy.

Due to unavailable data the following indicators have been omitted:

Sources

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GDP, PPP (current international) $2,509,672,653,825 (2018) GDP Growth Rate (annual %) 1.994% (2018) GDP Per Capita, PPP (current international) $19,888 (2018) Click on a row to display its 5-year graph on the right. Note: GDP composition percentage may exceed 100.

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Mexico is quickly becoming an emerging market heavy-weight. In 2017, its gross domestic product was $2.4 trillion. This was much less than its primary trading partner, the United States, with a GDP of $17.9 trillion. But it was larger than its other North American Free Trade Agreement partner, Canada. Its GDP was only $1.6 trillion. Mexico's geographic size is equivalent to Saudi Arabia. But it supports five times as many people while exporting one-fourth of the oil.

Mexico's 2017 GDP growth rate was 2.1 percent, about that of the United States, but less than Canada's 3.0 percent growth. Mexico's growth has slowed since 2016, when it was 2.3 percent. Its standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita, was $19,500. That's less than half of its other NAFTA partners.

Mexico is the 13th largest exporter in the world. In 2017, the United States received 81 percent of Mexico's exports. Trade with the United States and Canada has tripled since NAFTA's signing in 1994. More than 90 percent of Mexico's trade is under 12 free trade agreements. Mexico has agreements with 44 countries, more than any other nation. These trade agreements are a big reason for Mexico's success.

Mexico manufactures and exports the same amount of goods as the rest of Latin America combined. Foreign trade is a larger percentage of Mexico's economy than any other large country. Mexico's No. 1 export is manufactured products. It also exports silver, fruits, vegetables, coffee, and cotton.

Mexico is the world's eighth largest producer of oil, at almost 3 million barrels per day. This is less than Canada, Iran, or Iraq but more than other big exporters such as Kuwait, Brazil, or Nigeria.

Mexico imports machinery for metalworking and agriculture. It also imports electrical equipment, automobile and aircraft parts, and steel mill products. The chart below shows a breakdown of the top 10 exports:

Mexico's economy and culture are changing. Until 2012, Mexico's economy underperformed Brazil's. Mexico is now a major manufacturing center for electronics. That includes most of the flat-screen TVs sold in the United States. It also makes medical devices and aerospace parts.

International trade, which is exports plus imports, equals 66 percent of the country's GDP. That's much higher than Brazil's 26 percent or even China's 42 percent. This emphasis on trade makes Mexico's companies globally competitive. Gruma is the world's largest tortilla maker. Bimbo is the largest bread maker since it acquired U.S. baker Sara Lee. Mexican companies have access to the U.S. market. They also share a common language with the rest of Latin America.

Mexico grew from the ninth to the seventh largest auto manufacturer in the world between 2010 and 2015. It's the fourth largest auto exporter. It recently surpassed Japan as the second-largest U.S. auto parts exporter.

Part of the change includes a new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He was elected on July 1, 2018 to a six-year term. He promised to end corruption, reduce violence, and address Mexico's poverty. Voters were fed up with

AMLO, as he is called, promised to review contracts for oil exploration awarded to foreign firms. Mexico's oil industry needs foreign expertise and investment. In the last 14 years, oil production has dropped from 3.5 million to 1.9 million barrels per day. Its refineries are operating at 40 percent capacity.

At the same time, AMLO wants to invest $9.4 billion in the state-owned sector. He would build two new refineries and renovatef six existing ones. He would award the state-owned oil monopoly, Pemex, $4 billion for exploration. He believes it would boost production to 2.5 million a day within two years.

The former president, Enrique Peña Nieto, awarded 100 contracts to partly privatize Mexico's oil industry. Peña Nieto also strengthened the automobile industry by making it easier for foreign companies to build auto plants. His Pact for Mexico was responsible for convincing Congress to pass 85 major reforms. It tore down monopolies, reformed education, and revamped tax laws. It even passed a new junk-food tax to combat Mexico's diabetes epidemic.

Prior administrations resisted privatization. Pemex sent all its revenues to the federal government. As a result, about one-third of the government's income is dependent on oil. Instead of investing in developing new fields, the government had been treating Pemex like a cash cow, trying only to maximize short-term profit. As a result, production fell 25 percent in the last 10 years. The CEO was replaced by the Mexican Congress in February 2016.

Mexico built up its infrastructure to enhance trade. That made Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecom tycoon, the world's richest man in 2007. He retained that title until 2013 when Microsoft founder Bill Gates regained that position.

Helu owns three companies: América Móvil, Telmex, and Grupo Financiero Inbursa. They control 70 percent of mobile phones, 80 percent of home phone lines, and 70 percent of broadband. This lack of competition hampers growth. Mobile-phone penetration in Mexico is only 85 percent, about the same as Iraq. A fast broadband connection costs double, the same as in Chile. Other near-monopolies include Bimbo, which produces bread; Cemex, cement; and Televisa, televisions.

Helu's position is threatened by Mexico's new policies of deregulating the telecommunications industry. American company AT&T is entering the market, thanks to lowered tariffs.

The biggest challenge is getting rid of the drug cartels. President Peña Nieto increased security spending from 1.5 percent to 5 percent of GDP, the level that worked for Colombia.

Peña Nieto replaced President Felipe Calderón-Hinojosa. He had initiated a controversial crackdown on organized crime and corrupt local police. It created an all-out war. That increased violence including retaliation against civilians by the cartels. Many Mexicans blamed Calderon for upsetting the cartels and increasing violence.

Calderon had reason to be concerned. After Colombia's crackdown, many of its cocaine operations simply moved to Mexico. Without stringent controls, the cartels take over local governments. Calderon cracked down to improve Mexico's economic competitiveness. He also took steps to provide better health care, uphold legal institutions, and protect the environment.

Another challenge is the southern part of the country. It doesn't benefit from the maquiladora program on the northern border. An accounting of NAFTA pros and cons revealed that although 30 percent of Mexico's labor is employed under maquiladora companies, their working conditions in these companies have been deemed substandard.

Many Americans worry about illegal immigration from Mexico. The country is actually gaining immigrants itself. The legal foreign-born population doubled from 2000 to 2010. It's now one million total. Of these, 750,000 are Americans. As a result, more Americans have immigrated to Mexico over the past few years than vice-versa.

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More Americans Immigrate to Mexico Than Vice Versa

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Mexico is quickly becoming an emerging market heavy-weight. In 2017, its gross domestic product was $2.4 trillion. This was much less than its primary trading partner, the United States, with a GDP of $17.9 trillion. But it was larger than its other North American Free Trade Agreement partner, Canada.

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Before the colonization of the Americas, the area that is now called Mexico was inhabited by many indigenous tribes. When the Spaniards took control, however, a combination of their oppressive ways, unfamiliar diseases, and war decimated the indigenous population.

The people that managed to survive gradually incorporated elements of Spanish culture into their own, such as the Catholic religion and the Spanish language. As a result, many of the original traits of the indigenous tribes have now been lost or blended into European-based customs. Today, efforts continue to revive a sense of pride for the Mexican indigenous culture, something that was started around the time of Mexican Independence and gained force during the Revolution.

THE OLMECS

The Olmecs are thought to be one of the oldest major civilizations in Mexico; their presence in the region dates back to before 1000 BC. The Olmecs relied heavily on agriculture and were the first to introduce ritual bloodletting. We still don't know how Olmec society was structured, but it is believed to have been hierarchical. One clue that led to this theory are the huge stone heads they left behind (measuring 4 to 11 feet tall), which are believed to represent the heads of Olmec rulers. Much is still unknown about the Olmecs, such as what led to their decline around 400 BC. The Olmec people and culture did not completely disappear; many other tribes incorporated aspects of the Olmec culture into their own including the Aztecs more than 1000 years later.

THE AZTEC EMPIRE

One of the best-known indigenous Mexican groups are the Aztec, which actually absorbed many individual tribes to become one large group. Primarily Nahuatl-speaking, they claimed as their ancestral home a place called Aztlán. Today, some believe that Cerro de Culiacan in the state of Guanajuato, "150 Leagues" from Mexico City, is this mythical place. The Aztecs are an agglomeration of different tribes, and the Mexica (pronounced me-shee-ka) were considered the most powerful group. After roaming the land, they entered into the Valley of Mexico after their leader Huitzilopochtli ordered them to change locations in the 13th century.

At least 16 other indigenous tribes were already occupying this valley after they themselves had migrated to this area of Mexico. Since the Mexicas were one of the last tribes to arrive, they found that all of the good land had already been claimed. They were forced to keep searching for their own spot until they eventually found a small island in a lake of the valley. Here, according to legend, they would see an eagle eating a snake while perched on a cactus. This vision would be a sign indicating that this was where they should settle.

The vision was fulfilled, and the settlement which would later become the famous Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was founded. The Mexica became very skilled in developing their homeland, which helped them move their way up the social and political ladder of the Aztec Empire, as well as intermarrying with other tribes.

THE ZAPOTEC

Moving further south to the Valley of Oaxaca, the Zapotec civilization was flourishing as long as 2,500 years ago. With its beginnings around the 6th century BC, the Zapotec civilization continued developing until the Spanish conquest in the 15th century: their empire lasted much longer lasting than that of the Aztecs. Their civilization was centered around the Zapotec capital of Monte Alban and is known to have been very advanced for its time. There was not one single Zapotec language but instead a group of related Zapotec languages and dialects, which had both written and spoken forms.

Many have survived to this day with the significant Zapotec communities that still live in the state of Oaxaca, as well as other parts of Mexico. Benito Juarez, the first indigenous president of Mexico, was of Zapotec descent. Their survival is likely to be down to the fact that, upon hearing of the defeat of the Aztecs by the Spaniards, they decided not to fight them like the Aztecs did, but there were numerous uprisings against the Spanish up to the 18th century.

THE MAYA

The Maya civilization started around 2000 BC although precisely where is not known. It is generally believed that the first settlements were along the Pacific coast in present-day Chiapas State. What is known is that this empire extended from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico all the way south to El Salvador. Maya civilization has four clearly marked periods in time starting with the Preclassic Period that dates from the beginning of Maya civilization to around 200 AD.

The next period is the Classic (AD 250-900), followed by a Collapse and large-scale abandonment of the cities. Finally, the Postclassic period (from the 10th to the 16th century) encompasses the decline of Maya civilization and ultimate surrender to the Spanish conquistadors.The Maya were a hierarchical people organized into city-states with rulers pertaining to each one. Even though trade routes were established between cities, and relations were fluid between cities, warfare between different cities appears to have been common.

Often, this warfare was linked to political control and capturing resources, and as populations increased, so did the level of violence. No one knows why Maya society collapsed at the end of the first millennium. Some think it was due to overpopulation, others think a drought was responsible, but it was most likely a combination of environmental and non-environmental factors that caused the steep drop in population and abandonment of many cities. While many great cities would vanish, some cities in the Yucatan would be spared and continue to flourish, such as Chichén-Itzá.

These cities would remain to greet the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century. One last note regarding the Maya is that they were supremely advanced for their time, sometimes outshining their European counterparts in science and math. We mustn't forget the they were using the zero 800 years before Europeans, and that the calendar they employed remains equally valid today as it was 2,000 years ago. The result of the combination of indigenous and Hispanic cultures over hundreds of years has resulted in much of the Mexican population being of 'mestizo' (mixed) race, but there are still areas where native peoples have mixed little with outsiders, even today. Nowadays the Mexican government strives to honor all races and cultures, particularly those of the indigenous tribes which still exist but often remain out of sight.

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Indigenous Mexican Civilizations - Mexican History - donQuijote

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Before the colonization of the Americas, the area that is now called Mexico was inhabited by many indigenous tribes. When the Spaniards took control, however, a combination of their oppressive ways, unfamiliar diseases, and war decimated the indigenous population.

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Mexico's indigenous population is one of the two largest in the Americas (only Peru is comparable in size). More than one in ten Mexicans speaks an indigenous language.

The Mexican government's census asks whether citizens speak one of Mexico's 56 recognized indigenous languages. This data forms the basis for official estimates of the size and distribution of the national indigenous population. As recently as the 1990 census, the estimated size of the indigenous population by officially excluding children under five years of age. One demographic study included at least some of the children under five to produce an estimate of 6.4 million indigenous Mexicans in 1990, or 7.89% of the national population (1). The National Indigenous Institute (INI), however, attempted to take undercounting into account, producing a 1990 estimate of "no less than" 8.7 million, or 10.7% of the national population. (2).

The ten largest indigenous language groups are Náhuatl (22.7% of indigenous language speakers), Maya (13.5%), Zapoteco (7.6%), Mixteco (7.3%) Otomí (5.3%), Tzeltal (5.3%), Tztotzil (4.3%), Totonaca (3.9%), Mazateco (3.2%) and Chol (2.4%).(3). The larger languages include several very distinct variants.

Most of Mexico's indigenous population is geographically concentrated in about one third of Mexico's states (see map). More than half live in four states. The ten states with the largest share of the reported national indigenous population are Oaxaca (18.3%); Veracruz (13.5%), Chiapas (13%), Puebla (9.42%), Yucatán (8.2%), Hidalgo (5.7%), state of Mexico (5.6%), Guerrero (5.2%), San Luis Potosí (3.2%) and Michoacán (2.9%). In terms of relative presence, Mexico's most predominantly indigenous language-speaking states are: Oaxaca (with 52.7% of the state's population), Yucatán (52.5%); Quintana Roo (36.7%), Chiapas (35.2%), Hidalgo (26.4%), Campeche (25.4%), Puebla (19.9°), Veracruz (18.8%), Guerrero (17.2%), San Luis Potosí (13.8%). (4). Not only should this data be interpreted in light of a significant undercount, especially likely in the 1990 census, but informal estimates also suggest that as many as one million additional indigenous people reside in the Mexico City area.

Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc.

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Mexico's indigenous population is one of the two largest in the Americas (only Peru is comparable in size). More than one in ten Mexicans speaks an indigenous language. The Mexican government's census asks whether citizens speak one of Mexico's 56 recognized indigenous languages.

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BOGOTA, Sept 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Human traffickers in Mexico often hold the children of women sold into the sex trade hostage in order to force the mothers to keep working, campaigners said.

Traffickers prey on young and impoverished mothers, sometimes posing as a victims' boyfriend, and even marrying and having children with her, according to experts.

When women forced into prostitution do not earn their weekly quota, disobey rules, or try to escape, traffickers threaten to keep or harm their children, they said.
Take Action: No Human Should be Bought or Sold. Ask the UK to Give More Support to Victims of Modern Slavery
"A way that traffickers coerce their victims in Mexico is by getting them pregnant, and then removing the child from their care," said Rosi Orozco, who heads the Commission United Against Human Trafficking, a Mexican non-governmental organisation.

"She is then threatened continually that she will never see her child again if she doesn't do as she is told," said Orozco, a former congresswoman who spearheaded Mexico's anti-trafficking law in 2012.

In the past five years, about 400 victims of sex trafficking have suffered this way, according to Teresa Ulloa, Latin America regional director for the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.

Victims are commonly women and girls aged 15 to 25 living in impoverished areas across Mexico, Ulloa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Women are lured with false offers of work as dancers or models in cities in Mexico and the United States only to be forced into prostitution on the streets and in brothels, she said.
Read More: Venezuela's Crisis Has Put Women and Children at Higher Risk of Being Trafficked
In parts of the central Mexican states of Puebla and Tlaxcala, sex trafficking is usually a family-run business, and the children of victims become property of local gangs, according to Ulloa.

"There's, like, the godfather, the head of the family, then the whole family below him plays a role, some in looking after the children," Ulloa said.

"But they don't look after the children."

Children, including babies, rescued in anti-trafficking police operations have been found in "appalling, overcrowded" conditions, and some were tied up, Ulloa said.

"There were situations where children aged three were having to change the nappies of babies, and they had red, horrible rashes," she said.

Over the past decade, federal authorities have investigated 169 cases of human trafficking in Puebla and Tlaxcala, including forced prostitution, official figures show.

But survivors are unlikely to testify in cases against the perpetrators unless authorities are able to first rescue their children, Ulloa said.

"Women won't talk if they know their children are still in the hands of the traffickers," she said.

In Tlaxcala, sex trafficking is often a crime passed down through generations and regarded as a "cultural tradition," according to Jorge Sosa, a lawyer and anti-trafficking campaigner in Puebla.

"It's accepted in families that children prepare and aspire to become pimps," he said.
(Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota. Editing by Jared Ferrie. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
"Children even feel proud of saying that when they grow up they want to be pimps."

Globally, nearly 5 million people are forced into sexual exploitation, according to the International Labor Organization.

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Traffickers in Mexico Hold Children Hostage to Force Mothers Into Sex Work

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BOGOTA, Sept 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Human traffickers in Mexico often hold the children of women sold into the sex trade hostage in order to force the mothers to keep working, campaigners said. Traffickers prey on young and impoverished mothers, sometimes posing as a victims' boyfriend, and even marrying and having children with her, according to experts.

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Attorney General Emilia Navas calls it a "before and after" moment in Costa Rican politics.

In 2017, audio recordings of a conversation between building developer Juan Carlos Bolaños and Guillermo Quesada, a Central Bank deputy, lifted the curtain on an apparent corruption scheme involving business interests and public officials from every branch of government.

At the core of the scandal was Bolaños' effort to import cement from China to undercut Cemex and Holcim, two multinationals with a hold on the Costa Rican market. Officials allegedly changed import rules in Bolaños' favor to enable the deal, and public banks gave him more than $30 million in questionable loans for the purchase.

The scandal, known as the " cementazo," led to additional investigations and the removal from office of a Supreme Court judge, Navas' predecessor as attorney general, officials at the Central Bank and a member of Congress.

But so far, none of the key figures in the case have been convicted of a crime. Bolaños maintains his innocence, and is under house arrest while investigations against him continue. Whether the cementazo will mark a true turning point in Costa Rica's fight against corruption remains to be seen.

"The public has a very high opinion of the attorney general, but such high expectations can be dangerous," said Kevin Casas Zamora, an associate researcher at the Inter-American Dialogue. "It's too early to tell what effect the cementazo will have on the institutions involved in Costa Rica's corruption fight."

In an interview with AQ, Navas acknowledged the challenges of prosecuting a case of the size and complexity of the cementazo, especially when former members of the judiciary had been implicated.

"We have to try to restore confidence in the justice system," Navas said. "The most valuable thing we have at our disposal right now is transparency and accountability to the public, to the media and to everyone else."

To that effect, Navas' office has taken uncommon steps to keep Costa Ricans informed about ongoing investigations. In January she became the country's first attorney general to offer an annual report on her office's activities to the public.

Meanwhile, the list of public officials implicated in the cementazo continues to grow - on July 18, Navas confirmed that her office had opened an investigation into former President Luis Guillermo Solís over his alleged involvement in the case.

But Navas said her office still lacked some of the tools it needed to fully investigate corruption networks like the one uncovered in 2017. That includes a sufficient pool of prosecutors with specific knowledge of anti-corruption practices, Navas said.

In March, Navas' office petitioned the Supreme Court to authorize the creation of a special unit to train and employ prosecutors to fight corruption. The Court approved the petition, and the new unit will come into force later this month, though concerns persist over whether it will be given the support and funding it needs to work as envisioned.

"(President Carlos Alvarado) has said that he cares deeply about the case, and that corruption is a priority," Navas said. "So far the reaction has been good, but we need to see if that translates when it comes time to make decisions."

As in Brazil, where members of the judiciary have been accused of cutting corners - and worse - in prosecuting the Lava Jato corruption scandal, Navas said she was cognizant of the risks of overreach inherent in a case of the size and scope of the cementazo.

She also said she understood how her role leading the high-profile investigation made her a target for criticism.

In July, a former presidential candidate, after hearing that Navas' office planned to investigate him, published a video on Facebook saying he "dares (Navas) to commit one more injustice against me."

"It's understandable that people don't want to be investigated, and generally speaking these are people with economic power and political influence," Navas said. "The hard part of it is that these are daily attacks, attacks on us personally and professionally."

Much of the criticism of Navas' work as attorney general has indeed hit close to home. Navas' husband is a prominent lawyer in Costa Rica and critics often claim her relationship as proof that she is too close to some of the circles of power she's meant to be investigating.

Navas denies that she has been anything but impartial as Costa Rica's top prosecutor, and notes that when necessary she has stepped away from cases to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. In May, she recused herself from an investigation into Aldesa, a financial brokerage, because her husband serves as counsel to the firm's director.

The stakes of the cementazo investigation are high, both for Navas and for Costa Rica. "Absolute transparency," Navas said, will be key to both avoiding missteps and maintaining public support.

"This type of network of corruption may have been unprecedented in Costa Rica, but so was the demand from the public for justice," Navas said. "Before, there wasn't such interest in pursuing and denouncing acts of corruption, but in this case public pressure has made a huge difference."

--

Russell is a senior editor for AQ. Follow him on Twitter @BenPaulRussell

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Costa Rica's "Before-and-After" Corruption Scandal Casts a Long Shadow

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Attorney General Emilia Navas calls it a "before and after" moment in Costa Rican politics. In 2017, audio recordings of a conversation between building developer Juan Carlos Bolaños and Guillermo Quesada, a Central Bank deputy, lifted the curtain on an apparent corruption scheme involving business interests and public officials from every branch of government.

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Costa Rica's Anti-Corruption Trajectory: Strengths and Limitations

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In spite of the economic and social policy successes of Latin America's longest surviving democracy, corruption has become a major problem shaking Costa Ricans' confidence in appointed and elected public officials. In response to the apparent rise in

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On 8 December 2011, President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica delivered the 19th U Thant Distinguished Lecture at UNU Headquarters in Tokyo. She also met with UNU Media Centre staff for a brief video interview, during which she discussed some of the same environmental success stories of Costa Rica that UNU-IAS researcher Robert Blasiak covers in this article.

The challenges are clear. Global environmental indicators all seem to be going in the wrong direction, while the population continues to grow and carbon emissions spiral to record highs. There is, however, considerable room for optimism as impressively positive trends continue to emerge from Costa Rica, a small nation in Central America.

At first, the story of Costa Rica's forests seems like a tragedy. In the 1940s, over 75 per cent of the country was covered in indigenous woodland, mostly tropical rainforest. In the subsequent decades, however, rampant and unchecked logging ensued as the nation's valuable forest resources were transformed into cash profits. By 1983 only 26 per cent of the country retained forest cover, and the deforestation rate had risen to 50,000 hectares per year.

At this point, something amazing started to happen. By 1989 the annual deforestation rate had dropped to 22,000 hectares per year. The figure dropped even lower to 4,000 hectares per year by 1994 and in 1998 the deforestation rate had dropped to zero. Today forest cover has increased to 52 per cent (double 1983 levels), and the government has set the ambitious goal of further increasing this figure to 70 per cent and achieving carbon neutrality by 2021.

How did Costa Rica achieve such an astonishing reversal of trends? And how is it that over this same timeframe, Costa Rica has shown such impressive gains in social indicators like education level and poverty reduction? Is there a way that other countries around the world currently being devastated by deforestation, desertification and rampant biodiversity loss can achieve similar results?

The right combination

The answer seems to lie in a combination of ethics, environmentalism and effective policy-making. The readiness of key decision makers in Costa Rica to think outside the box may be seen in their decision to disband the country's standing army in 1948. At a recent presentation on 9 November 2011 at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, Japan, Costa Rica's Ambassador to Japan, Álvaro Cedeño Molinari, described how at the time this was principally an ethical decision.

Looking back, after 63 years without a military, such a seemingly unconventional decision has proven both brave and useful in channeling additional investment into the country's social and environmental programmes. This same forward-thinking set of ethics guided the country to amend its constitution in 1994 to enshrine the right of "every person [...] to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment".

Costa Rica's success in slowing and ultimately reversing the deforestation trend is due to recognition by policymakers of the value of the country's ecosystems. Success can also be attributed to a decision to use payments for environmental services (PES) as a tool for poverty reduction, particularly in rural areas. At the core of Costa Rica's PES programme is an understanding that healthy ecosystems provide a wide range of services, including carbon sequestration, water filtration and the provision of habitat for genetic resources, that can potentially be used in pharmaceuticals and natural medicines. By providing financial incentives to landowners, the so-called Tragedy of the Commons - the danger that free resources shared by all gradually degrade over time - can be averted.

These policies demonstrate an understanding that economic well-being is inextricably linked with healthy ecosystems. Or as Ambassador Cedeño Molinari succinctly put it: "One hundred percent of all the inputs and all the raw materials for all industrial and economic processes to produce all the products and services that we use come from the environment. One hundred percent. It's not a fraction; it's all of them."

In 1969, the country passed its first forestry law regulating logging permits and creating Costa Rica's Forestry Department. Despite good intentions, positive results from this policy did not begin to materialize for almost a decade. Further support came in 1984 with a loan for natural resource conservation from the United States Agency for International Development and in 1989 when the country's foreign debt was renegotiated so that the money could be reinvested into environmental conservation.

Then, in 1996, the National Forestry Fund was created, consolidating and institutionalizing financial incentives for environmental services. At the programme's outset, US$120 was paid for every hectare of forest conserved; to date, US$230 million has been paid out to a wide range of entities, including rural and indigenous communities and individuals. In addition, the programme has directly contributed to the creation of 18,000 jobs and indirectly supported an additional 30,000 jobs - substantial figures in a country of 4.5 million people. The programme is financed from a variety of sources, including foreign loans and donations, forest credit certificates and revenues generated by a tax on the use of fossil fuels.

Environmental and economic

A clear link can be drawn between the country's investment in reforestation/afforestation and its economic well-being. With 50 per cent of Costa Rica's GDP linked to tourism (largely adventure tourism and ecotourism) a commitment to the environment has also equaled good business. Setting the goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2021, the Pax Natura (peace with nature) Initiative announced by Costa Rica's President in 2007 has established a further ethical basis for environmental commitment.

Among other things, the initiative's website provides a carbon calculator for determining CO2 emissions - an issue of particular importance considering the country's heavy focus on attracting ecotourists from abroad. The initiative's carbon certification programme recently received gold standard validation in accordance with the international CCB (Climate, Community and Biodiversity) standards.

While efforts to overcome the recent global financial and banking crisis have seemed to underline the pre-eminence of economic concerns in policy-making, Costa Rica's grand ethical narrative seems to have found resonance with both the public and private sectors. Companies, including one of the country's leading beer manufacturers, Florida Bebidas, have taken on the mantle of corporate social responsibility and set self-imposed objectives of water neutrality and zero waste production. While such targets may seem fantastical in today's world, a cycle of environmentalism seems to have taken hold in Costa Rica, and promises to be further bolstered by the company's recent announcement that it had succeeded in cutting the waste generated by its manufacturing, storage and administrative facilities by 99.4 per cent.

Global interconnectedness and interdependency, however, means that Costa Rica's successes are a success for the whole world. The biodiversity contained in rainforests like Costa Rica's continues to yield new discoveries of tremendous importance for pharmaceutical companies. In addition, while the ecotourism opportunities that the country offers may translate simply into a relaxing vacation for some, they have the potential to plant the seeds of a new-found environmental commitment within the minds of other visitors.

Lessons for the world

It's difficult to predict which decisions taken by Costa Rica's political and business leaders would be transferable to other countries. Certainly not every country will be able to depend so heavily on international ecotourism. But the underlying recognition that a healthy economy cannot exist over the long term without a healthy environment seems to have found resonance in Costa Rica and laid the foundations for decades of environmentally conscious decision-making within both the public and private sectors. Perhaps one of Costa Rica's greatest contributions to the world can be its simple demonstration that it is possible for a nation to establish a system of environmental ethics shared by the public and private sectors that carries benefits for the entire country.

The underlying recognition that a healthy economy cannot exist over the long-term without a healthy environment seems to have found resonance in Costa Rica.

While it may be heartening to read such positive environmental news for a change, it is important to point out that, just like other decision-makers around the world, even Costa Rica's leaders are faced with sobering challenges and difficult decisions in the coming years. For one thing, although Costa Rica has celebrated a tremendous achievement in reversing deforestation trends, reports indicate that the nation's bio-capacity has continued to decrease. The underlying causes remain unclear, but one sobering possible explanation is that the negative impacts of large-scale ecosystem change continue on for decades even after significant steps have been taken to slow and reverse such processes.

Likewise, as Costa Rica's per capita GDP increases, so too does its energy demands, with the growing transportation sector currently dependent on imported fossil fuels. Although 99.2 per cent of its current energy needs are met from renewable sources, the opportunities for additional renewable energy production are limited and may carry negative side effects. Will the country tap into the wealth of geothermal energy available in its volcanoes, although these are now all contained within national parks? Will it accept the environmental costs of constructing additional hydroelectric plants on its river systems? Or will new innovations offer more attractive and environmentally friendly alternatives?

While the deluge of reports of environmental destruction threatens to overwhelm even the most optimistic of policymakers, it may be a breath of fresh air - literally - to visit Costa Rica. With the Rio+20 Summit just around the corner, marking the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit, the world's attention will be focused more than ever on environmental issues in 2012.

Taking a closer look at what Costa Rica has accomplished in the past 30 years may be just the impetus needed to spur real change on a global scale.

♦ ♦ ♦

This article originally appeared on 7 December 2011 in UNU's OurWorld 2.0 webzine.

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Ethics and environmentalism: Costa Rica's lesson - United Nations University

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On 8 December 2011, President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica delivered the 19th U Thant Distinguished Lecture at UNU Headquarters in Tokyo. She also met with UNU Media Centre staff for a brief video interview, during which she discussed some of the same environmental success stories of Costa Rica that UNU-IAS researcher Robert Blasiak covers in this article.

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The ADU-500 Data Logger is an ultra-low power, wireless RTU with data logging and alarming capabilities. The battery-powered RTU integrates two analog inputs, three digital inputs, one pulse counter input and several excitation options for powering measuring transducers.

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Costa Rica: Environmental Issues, Policies and Clean Technology

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Costa Rica spans the isthmus of Central America. It has tropical coastal plains, mountainous areas and a temperate central plateau where the majority of the population is located. Costa Ricans have enjoyed a contiguous democratic government for more than 100 years.

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One year ago, on 18 April 2018, Nicaraguans took to the streets to protest against proposed changes to the country's social security system.

The protests soon widened into calls for the resignation of President Daniel Ortega, whose government responded with a deadly crackdown. More than 300 people were killed and thousands injured.

Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans have since fled to neighbouring Costa Rica, but as Lisa Louis reports from the capital, San José, not all received the welcome they had hoped for.

Electrical engineering student Henry Obregón joined the anti-government demonstrations in his native Nicaragua when they first started.

"We were asking for more social justice," he recalls of those early days of protest. "But the government's response was to arrest, torture or kill lots of us."

Timeline: Nicaragua's spiralling violence

16 April 2018: President Ortega's government announces plans to reform the country's social security system. The proposals would have seen pensions cut by 5%.

18 April: Anti-government protests erupt nationwide in response to the planned changes. Demonstrations intensify when pro-government gangs violently crush a small demonstration.

22 April: Mr Ortega scraps the proposed reforms after clashes between demonstrators and security forces result in several deaths.

8 July: The deadliest day of clashes in Nicaragua since protests started, with 38 people reported dead in three areas.

24 July: President Ortega refuses to bow to protesters' demands to stand down, saying the hundreds of deaths during three months of protests were caused by paramilitary groups.

29 August: The United Nations Human Rights Office publishes a scathing report into alleged human rights violations committed in Nicaragua.

21 March 2019: The Nicaraguan government agrees to release all opposition prisoners within 90 days in a bid to restart stalled peace talks.

After two months of protests, during which the 21-year-old student from Managua saw fellow protesters disappear and get killed, Mr Obregón decided to flee to Costa Rica.

'Nicaraguans out'

Now he is sharing a house in San José with 10 other Nicaraguans, part of the spiralling number who have sought refuge in the neighbouring country.

The huge increase in asylum seekers has not gone unnoticed among Costa Ricans and some have taken to the streets in protest.

Last August, about 500 marched into Parque de la Merced, a park in San José frequented by Nicaraguans. Waving Costa Rican flags, they shouted "Nicaraguans out" and physically threatened some refugees.

It was Costa Rica's first anti-foreigner rally in modern times and shattered the reputation the nation of five million had for being open and welcoming to those seeking refuge.

Angela Chamorro, who arrived in Costa Rica from Nicaragua in June, was shocked.

"I don't understand why they hate us," she said while sitting on a upturned bucket that doubled as a chair in the tiny house that is her new home.

'Scared for my children'

Ms Chamorro moved to La Carpio, a poor neighbourhood next to a huge landfill outside of San José, with her three children. The family shares the shack's two tiny rooms with a friend.

Despite its shortcomings, she said the place felt like a refuge after she witnessed a shoot-out at the local market in her hometown of Granada. "Armed strangers started shooting at the salespeople," she recalled.

"One was hit in the heel, another one in the head and was bleeding profusely. I was so scared that something would happen to my children," Ms Chamorro, who had already been repeatedly mugged at gunpoint, said of her reasons for leaving Nicaragua.

"Some of the Nicaraguans here may be violent," she said referring to a number of recent murders allegedly committed by Nicaraguans. "But the vast majority of us are just looking for a safe haven."

Growing animosity

One of the Costa Ricans angered by the influx of Nicaraguans is Miria Gómez.

Draped in the Costa Rican flag, the 60-year-old is yelling into a microphone at an anti-foreigner march in Parque de la Merced. "We are defending our fatherland," she shouts to applause from two dozen onlookers.

She argues that Nicaraguans only come to Costa Rica "to commit crimes" and resents what she claims is the preferential treatment they receive.

"Nicaraguan refugees receive free water and electricity. But Costa Ricans are also suffering and don't receive the same support," she says, referring to Costa Rica's recent economic slump, which has seen unemployment figures rise to their highest level in a decade.

The government denies refugees receive state subsidies apart from being offered shelter when they have nowhere to live.

University of Costa Rica immigration researcher Carlos Sandoval has no doubt that the mood in Costa Rica has shifted.

"The xenophobic march was a turning point. Our whole image as a liberal nation changed," he says of the first anti-immigrant demonstration in August.

Mr Sandoval wants a sense of solidarity and hospitality to prevail in Costa Rica and has helped organise counter-demonstrations welcoming Nicaraguans.

The Costa Rican government, meanwhile, is working on new laws to combat hate speech and protect refugees.

Nicaraguans still meet at Parque de la Merced, even when that means having to listen to Miria Gómez's angry rants. But Ms Chamorro prefers to stay in La Carpio nowadays. She feels the park is no longer safe for her children.

Despite the backlash against Nicaraguans, she, like student Henry Obregón, will stay in Costa Rica for now. Eventually, they would both like to return to their home country but they say that first it would have to be safe for them to return.

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One year ago, on 18 April 2018, Nicaraguans took to the streets to protest against proposed changes to the country's social security system. The protests soon widened into calls for the resignation of President Daniel Ortega, whose government responded with a deadly crackdown. More than 300 people were killed and thousands injured.

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Costa Rica to Refugees: Come, Stay Awhile

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As the U.S. cracks down on immigration, Costa Rica becomes a favorable alternative.

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Although explored by the Spanish early in the 16th century, initial attempts at colonizing Costa Rica proved unsuccessful due to a combination of factors, including disease from mosquito-infested swamps, brutal heat, resistance by natives, and pirate raids. It was not until 1563 that a permanent settlement of Cartago was established in the cooler, fertile central highlands.

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Early History
Historically Costa Rica has always been somewhat of an oddity. Its name means Rich Coast but it was one of the poorest regions of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Now it is a relative prosperous Latin American country which does not have a standing army. It was also an undeveloped country that attempted to create a European-style welfare state.
Geographically Costa Rica consists of a central valley, called the Meseta Central bordered by mountain ranges and those bordered by coastal plains. The mountain ranges are part of the cordillera which spans the Americas from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Shortly before European contact the Caribbean area was invaded by the Caribs from the north coast of South America. The Caribs were a warrior people who conquered the tribes they found in the area. The Caribs captured the territory in the coastal plain of what is now Costa Rica on the Caribbean side. In their marauding the Caribs acquired gold which they made into pendants.

In his last voyage Columbus came to Costa Rica. The year was 1502 when his ships sought refuge there from a storm. When the Europeans saw the gold pendants of the natives wore they thought the area must have sources of gold so they called it the rich coast, not knowing that the gold which the natives had came from elsewhere. The area seemed to have such potential for wealth that Christopher Columbus' brother Bartolomé stayed there with a ship to explore the territory when the main party moved on. Bartolomé's party found only hostility but the Columbus family maintained an interest in Costa Rica for decades, long after Christopher Columbus had died in 1506.

In 1502 King Ferdinand of Spain commissioned Diego de Nicuesa to explore the territory of Costa Rica and Panama, a territory that was then called Veragua. The Nicuesa expedition found only difficult terrain occupied by many hostile tribes. Costa Rica was not an easily conquered centrally-administered empire like that of the Aztecs and the Inca. Instead it was an anarchic patchwork of tribes and each piece had to be separately conquered. Nicuesa was not able to establish any permanent settlement. The next expedition, led by Gil González Dávila, found some gold in 1522 but ran into a territorial dispute with the Spanish administrator of Veragua in Panama. It was not until 1524 that even a temporary Spanish settlement in the territory was established. This was by Fernando de Cordova. However the same territorial dispute with the Spanish administrator in Panama led Cordova to abandon the settlement.

The Columbus family in 1534 obtained the right to explore and develop a large section of what is now Costa Rica. An expedition led by Felipe Gutiérrez ended in disaster. Another expedition in 1540 under Hernan Sanchez de Badajoz created a temporary settlement but again territorial disputes, this time with the Spanish administrator in Nicaragua, and hostile natives ended the settlement. It was not until 1559, after six failed attempts over almost sixty years, that a permanent settlement was established in Costa Rica. This was achieved by Juan de Cavallón on the Pacific coast. When no gold was found in the region Cavallón left in 1562, but he was replaced by Juan Vasquez de Coronado. Coronado in 1564 entered the highlands of the Meseta Central and established Cartago. It was only the central valley highlands that had the potential for sustaining a permanent settlement.

Colonial Settlement

In 1539 the authorities of the Spanish Empire made Costa Rica independent of the Veragua administrators in Panama and in 1542 it was given the status of gobernación with its own administrators. But in 1568 Costa Rica was made part of the Kingdom of Guatemala. This Kingdom of Guatemala included, in addition to what is today Guatemala; the state of Chiapas in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. At that time what is now the state of Guancaste of Costa Rica was included in the territory of Nicaragua. Some elements of the administration of Costa Rica at that time were handled by administrative authorities in Nicaragua.

The Colonization of Costa Rica

Since there were no sources of gold in Costa Rica those who came came to farm. The native population was too sparse to support plantation agriculture so those who came came to do their own farming. This fact determined the character of Costa Rica and made it different from other Spanish colonies.

In the early days about the only farming that was feasible in the Meseta Central (central table-land) was subsistence farming. The journey to either coast was over mountains and through difficult lowlands. There were no connecting roads to Nicaragua. Few migrants came. By 1700 the population in Costa Rica, which is about the size of West Virginia, was only 20,000. Of these about 2,500 were originally from Spain. There were about 20,000 natives in the area as well at the time.

Generally all of the Costa Ricans were poor, but there were social class distinctions based upon ancestry. Some were hidalgos (gentlemen) and the others were plebeyos (plebians, commoners). The hidalgos had certain social privileges not enjoyed by the plebeyos, but fundamentally Costa Rican farmers were all about the same.

Despite their being poor the Costa Rican farmers were the target of various marauding groups. The Miskito Indians of the Caribbean coasts of what are now Belize and Nicaragua raided south into Costa Rica. The Costa Ricans tried to defend against these raids but ultimately had to pay a bribe to the chief of the Miskitos to curb their depredations. English and French pirates raided the coastal settlements and destroyed. In 1666 a pirate band of 700 under the leadership of Henry Morgan tried to march into the Meseta Central to raid the town of Cartago. An outnumbered force of Costa Rican farmers defeated Morgan's pirates.

Costa Rican economic development was severely limited because of the lack of roads to the coast. But better roads would not only have facilitated trade they would have facilitated raids by marauders.

The little export that Costa Rican farmers did achieve was in cacao beans, tobacco and mules. The mules were taken overland to Panama where the interoceanic transport was by mule train. Spain imposed the mercantilist policy that the trade of its colonies could only be with Spain. So the Costa Rican farmers got less for what little produce that they could get to the coasts and they had to pay higher prices for what they wanted to purchase. Poor little Rich Coast; it faced difficult terrain, marauders and bad trade policy. And, oh yes, the taxation imposed from Guatemala took resources out and put none back in.

Despite the adversities Costa Rica was growing. The first town of the Meseta Central, Cartago, was established in 1564 and served as the capital. Another town, Aranjuez, was established near the Gulf of Nicoya on the Pacific in 1568. It was not until the eighteenth century that other towns in the Meseta Central were founded. These were Heredia in 1706, San José in 1736, and Alajuela in 1782. These towns tended to become rather independent city-states.

Independence By Default

The American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars in Europe were shaking up most of the Spanish colonies in America but not Costa Rica. The Costa Rican farmers had the more important concern of raising crops to occupy their attention.

Costa Rica as part of the Kingdom of Guatemala became independent of Spain when the captain general of Guatemala proclaimed independence. Soon after Mexico declared independence General Irtubide was declared emperor of Mexico and tried to bring Central American into his empire. In 1822 the towns of Cartago and Heredia tried to lead Costa Rica in joining the Mexican Empire but San José and Alajuela opposed them in this matter.

Soon Emperor Irturbide was deposed and Central America declined the offered membership in the Mexican republic. There was some attempt to hold the subdivisions of Central America together but ultimately they all opted for independence.

Costa Rica was troubled in 1830's by the disagreement among the towns as to which would be the capital of the Costa Rican republic. There was an attempt to resolve the dispute by having the capital-ship shift every four years but a political leader in San José, Braulio Carrillo, established San José as the permanent capital, but not without resistance. Carrillo was dictatorial in other matters as well and ultimately had to be removed from power by force of arms in 1842.

After the turmoil of the 1830's Cost Rica began regularizing its political institutions in the 1840's. In 1847 a young Costa Rican, José María Castro Madriz, who had founded the University of Santo Tomás was selected by the Costa Rican congress to be Costa Rica's first president. In 1848 Costa Rica declared itself a republic and adopted a constitution which established basic civil rights and abolished the army.

A new economic factor had been developing in Costa Rica for some time. Some farmers were successfully growing and marketing coffee. This was leading to a rise of those coffee growers in economic and political power. They were called the coffee barons. Representatives of the coffee barons forced an increasingly inept President Castro Madriz to resign. He was replaced by a member of one of the prominent families whose wealth was based upon coffee-growing, Juan Rafael Mora Porras.

The coffee barons generally were classical liberals; i.e., they believed in the wisdom of free trade and inadvisability of government intervention in markets. Allowing the markets to take their course in the coffee country of Costa Rica meant that the more successful growers expanded their operations by buying up the properties of the less successful. Over time this led to a relative few number of land owners and a large number of landless peasants who worked for those large growers. The owners of small, inefficient farms usually increased their incomes when they sold their property and became laborers on the larger, more efficient coffee plantations.

The Episode of William Walker in Central America

1855 the government in Nicaragua was in the hands of feudalists, called then conservatives, and the Nicaraguan economic liberals were trying to depose them. The Liberals to their regret hired American mercenaries under the command of William Walker. William Walker was a meglomaniac from Tennessee who, once his mercenaries had defeated the Nicaraguan president, siezed control of Nicaragua for himself. Walker had himself made president of Nicaragua and re-enstated slavery. He also confiscated the property of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the New York transport magnate. Vanderbilt had created a lucrative transport system in Nicaragua to convey California gold-seekers from the Caribbean side of the country to the Pacific side.

JuanRafael Mora Porras,the president of Costa Rica, decided to do battle with Walker. With a force of nine thousand and the encouragement of Vanderbilt Mora Porras marched toward Nicaragua. Walker sent his mercenaries toward the Costa Rican border to counter the invasion. The Costa Ricans attacked the mercenaries at the border town of Rivas and won when the mercenaries had to flee after a Costa Rican drummer boy set the town on fire.

In 1857 Walker returned to Rivas but his force was again defeated. Walker himself had to seek refuge on an American ship that took him to Panama. When Walker, no wiser than before, brought another mercenary force into the region he was captured in Honduras and summarily executed, thus ending a bizaare episode in Central American History.

Costa Rica was victorious in the war against William Walker but at great cost. About half of the Costa Rican soldiers died as a result of the war, due to disease and privation as well due to actual conflict. The cost as well was great. Costa Rica under President Mora Porras was in financial difficulty even before the war began. An army coup d'etat deposed Mora Porras and replaced him with the leader of another prominent coffee-baron family, José María Montealegre.

The Montealegre family dominated Costa Rican politics for about two decades. A new constitution was written and adopted in 1859 and then again in 1869. When elected presidents displeased the Montealegres they arranged military coups to remove those presidents.

In 1870 a general, Tomá Guardia Gutiérrez, carried out a coup not sanctioned by the Montealegre family.

General Guardia vowed to end the political control of the coffee barons. He called for a plebiscite to make him legally president and was successful. In 1871 yet another constitution was written. This constitution was retained until 1949.

His legal term of office was up in 1876. A new president was elected but after only a few month in office Tomás Guardia cast aside that new president and took the presidency himself. He ruled until he died in 1882.

The Regime of Tomás Guardia and
the Rise of Minor Cooper Keith

Tomás Guardia was an archtype that has occurred frequently in Latin America: a military politician who takes a populist stance but replaces the corrupt old guard with a new made up of his family and old supporters. He tried to modernize Costa Rica with a program of free and mandatory public education. He tried to promote export trade by arranging for the construction of a railroad to link the Meseta Cental to the Caribbean coast at Puerto Limón.

The railroad had more of an impact than was expected. It brought Engineer/Entrepreneur Minor Cooper Keith to Costa Rica who not only built the railroad but created the banana industry of Costa Rica and initiated a number of other business ventures, including the creation of the United Fruit Company (united fruit company).

Presidente Guardia had commissioned Keith's uncle to build the railroad but the uncle died and Keith took over the project, called the Atlantic Coast Railroad. This railroad, costing $8 million, was a major financial burden for the small economy of Costa Rica. Keith began arranging deals with the government to ease the financial burden upon it. For example, at the coastal terminus of the railroad, Puerto Limón, Keith agreed to build the wharf in exchange for a portion of the wharfage fee shippers using it would pay. When the city of Puerto Limón needed to sell bonds to build a water and sewer system Keith bought up the bonds.

The construction of the Atlantic Coast Railroad presented some special problems. In the Meseta Central Keith could get the needed laborers from the local population but the lowlands were largely unpopulated because of the problems of malaria and yellow fever. The highland residents looked upon working in the lowlands as suicidal. Keith turned to securing an immigrant labor force. First he sought Chinese and Italian immigrants but these sources proved inadequate and he turned to Jamaica for workers who were used to the conditions of the locale. This changed the demography of Costa Rica. Keith's Jamaican labor force became a separate ethnic group in Costa Rica. They were English-speaking and African in heritage.

Keith arranged to take land holding along the railroad right-of-way in payment for some of the construction cost. He used these land holding to establish banana plantations and thus created Costa Rica's banana industry. It was a symbiotic relationship. The banana industry needed the railroad to get the product to the eastern coast for the U.S. and European markets and the railroad needed the freight business to help cover its costs. Later Keith's banana plantation holdings were merged with another banana company to form the United Fruit Company. This man with the oddly broken name thus had a major impact on the economics, the demography and the politics of Costa Rica.

The Dynasty of Guardia and Its End
With the Generation of '89

When General and Presidente Tomá Guardia Gutiérrez died in in 1882 after ruling costa Rica since 1870 the commander of the army, who was Guardia's bother-in-law, took over the government and assumed the office of president. This brother-in-law's name was Fernández Oreamuno. He only ruled for three years, until his death in 1885. His brother-in-law, Bernardo Soto Alfaro, then took over the government. Soto ruled for four years before voluntarily relinquishing the presidency. During his tenure he created a public school system, which like the American system, was free but compulsory.

The election of 1889 was a watershed in Costa Rican History. The candidate favored by Soto lost to José Joaquín Rodríguez Zeledón, a representative of a group of young liberals (classical). This group became known later as the Generation of '89. The classical liberal favored free trade and minimal intervention of the government in the economy. This was the economic philosophy of the coffee barons. The Guardia dynasty represented a more populist, interventionist philosophy.

The Election of 1894

President Rodríguez did not run for reelection buy instead supported the candidacy of Rafael Yglesias Castro. The Partido Unión Católica (Catholic Union Party) supported another candidate, José Gregoria Trejos Gutíerrez. Trejos received more votes than any other candidate but not a majority so the Costa Rican legislators had the right to name the president and they named Yglesias. The protests were suppressed and the Partido Unión Católica was disbanded.

Yglesias proceded to carry out those projects he felt essential for Costa Rican development. One of these projects was the building of a railroad to link the Meseta Central with the Pacific Coast. He also reformed the currency and put Costa Rica on the gold standard. He did things in a high-handed manner. When he had the Constitution amended so that he could run for another term he provoked opposition. Yglesias was able to retain the presidency in 1898 but the opposition against him strengthened when he attempted to run again in 1902. To prevent civil strife Yglesias and his major opposition candidate agreed not to contest the 1902 election and allowed a compromise candidate, Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra, to win the presidency.

Esquivel continued the policies of his predecessors, including increased funding for education. The 1906 election did not produce a clear winner and the Costa Rica congress selected the candidate with the plurality, Cleto González Víquez as president. González Víquez became known as Don Cleto in his long career in Costa Rican politics. In the next election, in 1910, there was a candidate who won a majority of the votes, Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno.

Jiménez, popularly known as Don Ricardo, sought and achieved electoral reform. He wanted the electorate to directly elect the president and he wanted more of the population to be included in that electorate. The Costa Rica legislature approved in 1913 a constitutional amendment to implement those objectives. As is often the case, what resulted was quite different from what was intended.

In 1914 the augmented Costa Rican electorate did vote for the president. However, none of the candidates achieved a majority so it was left for Congress to choose the president. Instead of Congress selecting one of the candidates it chose someone who had not run for the office, Alfredo Gonzá Flores. Gonzá Flores pursued the trend of his predecessors; i.e., promoting so-called "progressive" policies. The so-called "progressive" policies involved providing social benefits to the population as entitlements. This is basically the mentality of tribalism, hardly the hallmark of progressiveness. The economic problem of the social welfare state is that the benefits have to be paid for by taxing the viable industries of the country. In Costa Rica's case it was the coffee-growing industry that was taxed. The coffee industry was experiencing declining international prices, but the onset of World War I brought a financial crisis for the Costa Rican coffee industry because the European markets were taken away. Germany had been the best market for Costa Rican coffee.

Gonzá Flores reacted to the loss in coffee revenues by trying to increase the taxes for the wealthy. The wealthy who also were suffering from the coffee crisis reacted by trying to get their wealth out of the country. The capital flight added to Costa Rica's economic problems. Gonzá Flores, faced with a loss of government funds, had to lay off government employees, thus alienating a substantial interest group. The end result was a general disatisfaction with Gonzá Flores' administration. A dissatisfied general, Frederico Tinoco Granados, carried out a popularly supported coup d'etat in 1917.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson disapproved of Tinoco's coup and political turmoil in Costa Rica led Tinoco to relinquish power in 1919. In 1920 Julio Acosta Garciacute;a was elected president.

The Era of the Presidencies of Don Ricardo and Don Cleto

Don Ricardo and Don Cleto differed little in political economic philosophies. Both were classical liberals. This did not stop them from waging vigorous political campaign against each other.

When the Great Depression hit, these classically liberal politicians were forced politically to try to do something about economic conditions. Minimum wage legislation was enacted and some unused land owned by the United Fruit Company was distributed to landless farmers.

About this time political parties formed in Costa Rica which represented different ideological positions. Below are listed the major parties of Costa Rica with their general political orientations.

The Political Events Leading to the Civil War of 1948

Although there were few ideological differences between the factions allied with Don Ricardo and Don Cleto a few peripheral issues developed in the late 1930's. Costa Rica had a strong business community of people with a Germanic background. This German community had affiliations with the non-German community. Political differences began to develope over how the Costa Rican government should treat the German community given the geopolitical events in Europe.

Communist party organizing and actions were becoming an issue as well. In 1934 a strike in the banana industry closed down operations for seven weeks. The shear power of the communists in the labor unions was worrying politicians.

In the 1936 election, León Cortés Castro of the PRN was victorious. Cortés generally followed the policy of mild interventionism of his predecessor, Don Ricardo, but he began to use the police to thwart Mora Valverde's communists. Don Ricardo challenged Cortés politically. Cortés selected a physician to be the candidate of the PRN in 1940. That physician, Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia turned out to be a more astute and ambitious politician than Cortés was counting on.

Calderón deviated from the classic liberalism of his predecessors. The classic liberal were basically in favor of the policies of laissez faire capitalism and only deviated from that stance as a result of the seemingly emergency conditions of the Great Depression. Classical liberals were generally anticlerical and saw the Catholic Church as having too much secular power. In contrast, Calderón was an overtly devout Catholic who was pursuing social welfare programs supported by the Church. Calderón was willing to amend the Costa Rican constitution if necessary to achieve his social programs.

Calderón had passed 15 amendments to the constitution. He called them the Social Guarantees. He believed they could be used to create a social democratic program of social entitlements. Members of his own political party began to break with him.

Cortés broke with Calderón politically and formed the Partido Demócrata (PD). Others joined Demócrata in forming political parties opposed to Calderón. In the center there was the Accíon Demócrata. Communist Party leader, Mora Valverde, criticized Calderón's program for being too weak. Social democrats were blaming the inefficiency and corruption of the Calderón government for the lack of progress.

When Japan attacked the U.S. on December 7, 1941, Costa Rica joined the U.S. in declaring war against Japan and its allies of Germany and Italy. In July of 1942 a German submarine torpedoed and sunk a United Fruit Company ship in the harbor of Puerta Limón, Costa Rica. Calderón chose to use this as a justification for taking action against the German and Italian communities in Costa Rica. He supported the passage of an Alien Properties Act which allowed the government to confiscate property in Costa Rica belonging to German and Italian citizens.

A politically unknown rancher named José Figueres Ferres, the son of immigrants from Catalonia in Spain, purchased air time on a radio station to criticize the policies and actions of Calderón. Part way through the broadcast Figueres was arrested and sent into exile in Mexico. That was not to the end of Figueres for Calderón.

Calderón, who was being politically deserted by most everyone to the right of the communists, turned to Mora Valverde for support. Mora Valverde accepted the alliance. The name for the communists was changed to the Partido Vanguardia Popular (PVP). The international ties of communists were played down. The PRN and the PVP formed the Victory Bloc for the election, which they won handily. Their winning candidate was Teodoro Picado Michalski.

Despite the electoral loss to Picado, the opponents did not stop organizing...and reorganizing. A Partido Social Demócrata (PSD) was formed. When Figueres was allowed to return from exile in 1944 he accepted leadership of the relatively small PSD. The splinter party PD which Cortés had formed had a greater membership. Cortés died unexpectedly in 1946 and Figueres sought its nomination for the presidency for the election of 1948. He was unsuccessful. The PD candidate was Fernando Castro Cervantes, a social conservative.

The opposition to Picado and the PRN-PVP alliance continued in the form of street demonstration. In the army there were attempted coup d'etat's. Picado became distrustful of the army and so he relied upon the armed and organized communists party militia. During public protests of election irregularities in the legislative elections of 1946 the government forces fired at the protestors killing two. The public outrage against Picado escalated. Opponents of the regime were being arrested and sometimes forced into exile. Businesses staged a massive shutdown. Communist militia tried to break the shutdown by breaking into stores and giving away the goods.

In 1947 another conservative, Otio Ulate Blanco, revived the Partido Unión Nacíonal (PUN) to run in the 1948 election. Figueres had given up on removing the Picado regime from office through politics. Instead Figueres began organizing an armed insurrection.

The Presidential Election of 1948

Calderón could run for re-election in 1948 as the candidate of the PRN-PVP alliance. The opposition PD, even the social democratic PSD opposition, united in supporting the PUN candidate, Otilio Ulate Blanco, despite his conservatism.

In the February election, out of a total of one hundred thousand votes, PUN's Ulate had ten thousand more votes than Calderón. The Election Commission vote two to one to certify the result. The Picado government refused to accept the Election Commission's certification because it was not unanimous. It had the outgoing legislature review the result. The old legislature was controlled by Calderón supporters and they voted 27 to 18 to annul the election. That gave the legislature the right to select the president, which of course would be Calderón.

At his ranch Figueres assembled an insurrectionist army of about 600, some of whom were foreigners. The Picado government had at its disposal only a few hundred soldiers in the national army but the communists had three thousand in its militia. The show down was going to be between Figueres' insurrectionists and the communist militia.

The Costa Rican Civil War of 1948

Forces supporting the government advanced on Figures' ranch, but Figueres withdrew most of his forces into the mountains. Figueres' ranch was burned by the government forces. But the insurrectionists captured three DC-3 transports belonging to the government's airline. These were used effectively in transporting supplies into Costa Rica.

Insurrectionists were able to carry out actions to the south of San José as well as sabotage of the utilities within San José.

Communist militia supporting the government engaged Figueres' forces but were not able to defeat them. Meanwhile negotiation were initiated between Calderón and Ulate. Ulate was willing to compromise but Figueres held out for unconditional acceptance of Ulate as the victor in the election. Mora Valverde also was unwilling to surrender without a signed agreement of safe conduct for the government leaders and no retribution against the communist-led unions. Figueres refused to give such a guarantee.

Ultimately a verbal agreement to Mora Valverde's conditions was given. Mora Valverde also wanted a promise that Calderón's Social Guarantees would not be repealed.

There were about two thousand fatalities in the war, now known as the War of National Liberation, mostly among the forces supporting the government.

The Post-Civil War Period

Figueres was the winner of the civil war. It was a war to win acceptance of Ulate's victory in the 1948 election. That did not mean Ulate would immediately become president. Figueres negotiated an agreement that there would be an 18 month interim period in which Costa Rica would be government by a junta of which Figueres would be head. The title of the junta was La Junta Fundadora de la Segunda República (The Founding Committee of the Second Republic). During the 18 month period of junta rule a constituent assembly would prepare the constitution of the Second Republic.

During its period of rule the Junta issued 834 decrees with the force of law. Although Ulate was a conservative, Figueres and his supporters were basically social democrats; anticommunist social democrats but social democrats none the less. The Junta decreed an excess wealth tax of ten percent on all bank deposits in excess of about $10,000. The Junta nationalized the banks thus putting credit under government control. The social welfare programs created by previous administrations were not touched. Women were given the right to vote.

A whole set of industries and activities were brought into the public sector to be administered by autonomous public corporations. These included:

banking

utilities

public works

railroads

health facilities

public housing

higher education

vocational training

land reclamation

land management

the social security system

When weapon caches were found in communist areas the Junta abrogated the agreement made ending the civil war concerning no punitive actions to be taken against the communist unions. The communist-controlled unions were disbanded, the PVP was outlawed and 200 communists arrested.

Figueres in December of 1948 abolished the Costa Rican Army on the basis that it was unprofessional and unreliable. It was replaced by a national police force of 1500 called the Civil Guard. Many of the people from his own armed insurrectionists went into the Civil Guard.

The constituent assembly that was elected to formulate a new constitution was predominantly conservative PUN supporters. The constitution which was adopted, however, did not deviate from the mild social democratic philosophy of the Junta. Some notable features were:

A national army was prohibited except in times of national invasion.

Political parties could not belong to international movements that were undemocratic in nature; i.e, the communist and fascist parties were illegal.

The creation of a Supreme Electoral Tribunal that would oversee the electoral process and which would have police power during elections.

In November of 1949 the Junta relinquished governmental power to President Ulate and the National Assembly. Along with political power the Junta gave Ulate and the National Assembly a relative larger national debt.

President Ulate, although philosophically opposed to many of the policies implemented by the Junta, did not rescind them. He subtly uncut some of them. Instead of reprivatizing the banks nationalized by the Junta, Ulate allowed private banks to operate in competition with the nationalized banks. The excess wealth surtax was not enforced. The prohibition against communist organizing were enforced. Ulate's administration benefited by rising cofee prices.

The Political Career of José Figueres Ferres, (Don Pepe)

In 1951 Figueres, now known as Don Pepe, organized a political party. It was named Partido Liberación Nacional (Party of National Liberation), PLN. His old Partido Social Democrata (PSD) became a part of the PLN.

Figueres proclaimed its objective was to fulfill the goals of the Second Republic. This meant a program of social democracy. The middle class strongly supported him as the only viable alternative to a radical left, anti-American government. More conservative elements promoted the candidacy of Fernando Castro Cervantes who had been opposing Don Pepe since their fight for control of the PD in 1946. In 1953 Don Pepe and his PLN defeated Castro Cervantes and the PUN by an about two-to-one margin.

As president, Don Pepe carried out his program for turning Costa Rica into a social welfare state. Expenditures on education and public housing were increased. Urban development programs were initiated, as were state agricultural programs. To pay for the programs income taxes on the wealthy were about doubled and the taxes on the United Fruit Company were more than doubled. The minimum wage was increased and more jobs were created in government. Imported products were more heavily taxed to encourage domestic production.

Expenditures were increased more than revenues so Costa Rica gave up paying down its national debt, a debt that had been greatly increased during the 18 months when the Junta under Don Pepe's leadership ran Costa Rica. Rising coffee prices during Don Pepe's term of office kept the financial situation from deteriorating.

Don Pepe's term was made politically interesting by an invasion from Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Samoza García, gave refuge to Calderó and his communist supporters after the Civil War of 1948. In 1955 they came back called themselves the Authentic Anti-Communist Revolutionary Army. Samoza supported the rhetoric by publically referring to the Costa Rican government as "Figueres and the communists." The invasion was easily countered and the invaders retreated back into Nicaragua. International diplomatic efforts established a demilitarized zone along the border.

Don Pepe's term ended in 1958 and he was not eligible to run for re-election, but that did not mean that he left the scene of Costa Rican politics forever.

The 1958 Election

In 1956 the man who had been the finance minister in Don Pepe's government, Jorge Rossi Chavarría, broke with Don Pepe and his PLN over issues of financial policy and started a new party called the Partido Independiente (PI) to run for the presidency in 1958. The PLN candidate, who promised to continue Don Pepe's policies was Francisco Orlich Bolmarcich. With this split in the support for the center left it was relatively easy for the more conservative candidate of the PUN, Mario Echandi Jiménez, to win the presidency. Echandi had been a cabinet member of Ulate's administration after the 1948 civil war. In 1953 Echandi had been the favorite of the PUN constituency but he withdrew his candidacy to back Castro Cervantes of the PD, who was thought to have a better chance of defeating Don Pepe. Echandi thus had the image of being a responsible, reasonable person driven by principles rather than personal ambition.

Echandi won 46 percent of the vote for president, but his party, PUN, did not have strong representation in the legislature. PUN representatives held only 10 seats out of 444 and was only the third largest group, behind PLN (which held 20) and Calderon's PR (which held 11). Supporters of Rossi's PI held 3 seats.

Echandi found it difficult to make any headway on his campaign promises to reduce the role of the government in the economy and the budget deficits generated by this government involvement. The momentum of increased government involvement created by Don Pepe and the PLN carried Costa Rica to higher levels of national debt and Echandi was powerless to stop this trend.

The Election of 1962

After the defection of the Rossi wing of the PLN resulted in the 1958 victory for Echandi of the PUN, the PLN leadership reassembled their following for the 1962. The 1958 PLN candidate, Orlich, once again was its candidate. This time he was victorious, even though his opposition included two former presidents, Ulate of PUN and Calderó of the PR. Orlich pursued the traditional policies of the PLN established by Don Pepe. This included social democratic domestic programs and a staunch anti-communist line nationally and internationally. Unused land of the United Fruit Company was nationalized and distributed to landless farmers. Orlich's term in office was made more difficult by the volcano Irazú in 1963. Crop and cattle production were diminished by the fallout of ash from the volcano.

Victory for the Opposition to the PLN in 1966

The old saying that politics makes strange bedfellows, was once again true in the 1966 elections. Ulate whom Calderón tried to steal the election from in 1948, thus precipitating the 1948 Civil War, joined with Calderón to support José Joaquín Trejos Fernández, a candidate who they hoped could defeat the PLN candidate, Daniel Oduber Quiró, in 1966. Their strategy worked and Trejos was elected.

The Trejos administration was relatively efficient. Trejos wanted to reduce the deficit and did this by cutting government programs and he increased revenue by instituting a sales tax. His most controversial action was to grant to the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) a concession for mining bauxite. This concession became a political issue in Costa Rican politics for years to come.

The 1970 Election

This election was of interest because it involved the return of Don Pepe to active politics. His opponent was Mario Echandi Jiménez,, who had been the winning candidate of the PUN in 1958. This time however Echandi was not supported by PUN. Instead he organized a party called National Unification. Don Pepe easily defeated Echandi.

Don Pepe did not intend to create controversy. He promised to pursue the general program of his social democratic party, the PLN, but nevertheless some controversy did arise. There were protest, sometimes violent, concerning the mining concession which had been granted to ALCOA by his predecessor. Don Pepe's administration announced that the unrest was due to communists. But while pursuing PLN traditional anticommunist line domestically Don Pepe's administration established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union.

In 1972 an American fleeing prosecution came to Costa Rica. His name was Robert Vesco. He had gained control of an overseas investment fund and found a way to confiscate hundreds of millions of dollars of hot money that had been invested in that fund. With those funds Vesco tried to buy refuge in Latin American countries. Costa Rica had a tradition of providing a haven for political refugees and Vesco tried to take advantage of that tradition. The administration was accused of corruption for letting Vesco reside in Costa Rica despite his being sought by American authorities for prosecution on charges of financial fraud. (Vesco ultimately left Costa Rica to live in Cuba under the protection of that self-proclaimed paragon of morality, Fidel Castro.)

The 1974 Election and the Continuation of PLN Power

Costa Rican voters commonly voted against the party in power so typically there would be a change of regime at each election. In 1974 this pattern was broken. The candidate of the PLN, Don Pepe's party, won the election. He was Daniel Oduber Quirós, who had been the unsuccessful PLN candidate in the 1966 election. The 1974 election was hard fought and had seen the return of the Costa Rican communists to political activity.

In office Oduber continued the program of the PLN. This included establishing economic and diplomatic relations with communist countries. Oduber also raised the tax on banana exports significantly and the United Fruit Company and other banana exporters with expropriation if they sought to avoid the tax.

Oduber's administration was troubled by a political disagreement with Don Pepe and with the events stemming from the political revolution developing in Nicaragua.

The 1978 Election and the Fall of the PLN

Capitalizing on the dissension in the PLN and public concern about the revolution developing in Nicaragua, the more conservative element in Costa Rican politics organized a Unity Opposition, Unidad Opositera. The candidate of Unity Opposition was a former member of the PLN, Rodrigo Carazo Odio. Carazo was a businessman and he promised to break diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R. He also promised to deport Robert Vesco.

Carazo won and Unity Opposition was able, with the help of a small coalition partner, to organize the legislative government. Costa Rica became embroiled in border incidents with Nicaragua as both sides of the conflict violated Costa Rican territoriality. Carazo's administration apparently sanctioned the supplying of weapons from Cuba to the Nicaraguan rebels.

Financial problems plagued the Carazo administration. When the legislature refused to pass tax increases the administration resorted to borrowing. The national debt rose from $800 million to $3000 million. Businesses cutoff from domestic sources of funds borrowed abroad. It is alleged that the per capita of Costa Rica was the highest in the world at that time.

Significant inflation of 50 percent annually prompted a capital flight. In 1981 Costa Rica, which had not been serving its external debt, officially announced that it was not able to pay its debts. The Internal Monetary Fund (IMF) sent in representatives to negotiate the terms of IMF assistance. The agreement called for:

a devaluation of the Costa Rican currency, the colón

reduction of public subsidies

reduction of public sector spending, including wage payments

removal of price controls on public utilities and gasoline

reform of the tax structure and the methods for collecting taxes.

An agreement in Costa Rica and compliance with that agreement turned out to be two different things. The finance minister in the Carazo administration resigned in protest at the government not complying with its agreed-upon austerity program. His successor after one month resigned for the same cause. One observer at the time complained of the problems of dealing with charming but insincere Costa Rican government officials. The IMF ultimately suspended its loan agreement and closed its office in Costa Rica.

The Return to Power of the PLN in the 1982 election

The unsuccessful candidate of the PLN in the 1978 campaign, Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez, was renominated. In 1982 he won a resounding victory and the PLN members dominated the legislature.

The prize for Monge's electoral victory was overwhelming. The government was on the verge of bankruptcy, the rate of inflation was nearly 100 percent. Negotiations with the IMF were reopened. The terms of the previous agreement were accepted with additional provisions for the privatization of deficit-ridden state-owned enterprises. But again compliance with the agreement was an issue. When the utility rates were increased public protests forced a reduction of the increase. Strikes by government workers forced an increase in the wages. Support from his PLN party representative in the legislature dwindled.

Monge forced to seek outside help and he was able to secure financial aid from the United States and other donors. The U.S. government was fearful of the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua spreading to other Central American countries.

Don Pepe's son, Jose Maria Figueres, served as president between 1994 and 1998.

(To be continued.)

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Political and Economic History of Costa Rica

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Historically Costa Rica has always been somewhat of an oddity. Its name means Rich Coast but it was one of the poorest regions of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Now it is a relative prosperous Latin American country which does not have a standing army.

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Indigenous People: The "Indians" of Costa Rica

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Find information about the indigenous native peoples of Costa Rica. History, culture, crafts and Costa Rica's Indigenous Law of 1977.

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Written on . Posted in Costa Rica

Eight distinct indigenous peoples inhabit the country. Seven of them are of Chibchense origin: Huetar in Quitirrisí and Zapatón; Maleku in Guatuso; Bribri in Salitre, Cabagra, Talamanca Bribri and Këköldi; Cabécar in Upper Chirripó, Tayni, Talamanca Cabécar, Telire and China Kichá, Lower Chirripó, Nairi Awari and Ujarrás; Brunca in Boruca, and Curré; Ngöbe in Abrojos Montezuma, Coto Brus, Conte Burica, Altos de San Antonio and Osa; Teribe in Térraba and one of Meso-American origin (Chorotega in Matambú).

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Written on . Posted in Costa Rica

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya, undertook a visit to Costa Rica from 24-27 April 2011 to discuss the situation of indigenous peoples, in particular the Térraba people, affected by the Diquís hydroelectric project. At the end of his four-day visit, the Special Rapporteur noted that "All parties agree that it is necessary to initiate a consultation process that complies with relevant international standards before the hydroelectric project Diquis can move forward."

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Costa Rica - IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Written on . Posted in Costa Rica Eight distinct indigenous peoples inhabit the country. Seven of them are of Chibchense origin: Huetar in Quitirrisí and Zapatón; Maleku in Guatuso; Bribri in Salitre, Cabagra, Talamanca Bribri and Këköldi; Cabécar in Upper Chirripó, Tayni, Talamanca Cabécar, Telire and China Kichá, Lower Chirripó, Nairi Awari and Ujarrás; Brunca in Boruca, and Curré; Ngöbe in Abrojos Montezuma, Coto Brus, Conte Burica, Altos de San Antonio and Osa; Teribe in Térraba and one of Meso-American origin (Chorotega in Matambú).

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"Since 2012, we have seen an increase, and it's likely this curve will keep going up unless something extraordinary happens," Michael Soto, the deputy director of Costa Rica's Judicial Investigation authority, said in January.

But the increase comes as deadly violence elsewhere in the region is declining, and the trend appears to be continuing.

During the first three months of 2018, there were 146 homicides in Costa Rica - seven more than the same period last year. Included in these were eight femicides, killings where a woman is targeted specifically because of her gender. There were 26 femicides in 2017.

"We can't cover the sun with a finger. We are the same as last year," said Alvaro Gonzalez, head of the Costa Rica's Judicial Investigative authority's homicide division. Gonzalez tied the increase to drugs. "The fight against the narco is frontal because it is the principal cause of what we are experiencing," he said.

Authorities have attributed the rise in homicides to disputes between groups involved in the drug trade. According to the police, 52% of killings are related to score-settling, drug trafficking, or revenge.

Seventy percent of homicide victims in Costa Rica are younger than 30, and Gonzalez said youths who were neither in school nor employed were more susceptible to criminal activity.

A March report by the Costa Rican Drug Institute and the State of the Nation program found high rates of violence and drug trafficking correlate strongly to areas with high unemployment.

It also found that half the country's homicides in 2016 took place in 30 of its poorest districts, and half of drug seizures were in areas making up just 7% of the country's territory.

"Unemployment shows us people who ... don't have formal access to the market, don't have income, but have to cover basic necessities and find drug trafficking an option to survive," said Leonardo Sanchez, who led work on the report.

The geographic dimensions of violence also point to drug trafficking as a key driver.

In 2017, nearly 75% of homicides were concentrated in three of the country's seven provinces: San Jose, which includes the capital city; Limon, which covers the entire Caribbean coast; and Alajuela, which makes up much of northern border with Nicaragua.

In one canton near the capital, police have investigated 28 homicides since the beginning of 2017. In a recent case, a 27-year-old man was shot more than 15 times by a gunman on a motorcycle. Police attribute the violence to disputes over control of local drug sales - competition stoked by the capture of leaders who used to be in control of the area.

"For many years, Costa Rica was a route of passage. But now it is also selling and consuming [drugs]," Marcelo Solano, the director of the municipal police in San Jose, told BBC Mundo.

The provinces of Alajuela and Guanacaste, which is on the northern Pacific coast, have seen the country's greatest increases in homicide rate. Guanacaste went from 6.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 2015 to 12.7 in 2017. Alajuela rose from 5.8 per 100,000 in 2015 to 10.8 in 2017.

The Pacific coast in particular appears to be a hotspot for drug trafficking and drug-related violence.

In two February incidents, authorities intercepted a total of more than 3 metric tons of cocaine from boats off the country's southern Pacific coast. In early March, officials found a "narco sub" abandoned on the Pacific coast. A few weeks later, Costa Rican police and the US Coast Guard seized 240 kilos of cocaine on a fishing boat in the Pacific off Panama.

"There does not exist a beach in Costa Rica where narcos haven't penetrated with a boat with cocaine, coming from Colombia," Public Security Minister Gustavo Mata said in February 2017. (Jamaican traffickers moving marijuana are also active on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast.)

'Vague promises to improve security'

Despite those trends, security was not a high-profile issue during the presidential campaign.

"Even though Costa Rican citizens are concerned about rising violent-crime rates, the election in Costa Rica was fought on other issues," James Bosworth, founder of political-risk analysis firm Hxagon, told Business Insider.

Alvarado Quesada and his rivals focused largely on the country's financial situation, corruption, and social issues.

Solano, the police chief, stressed that Costa Rica is in better shape than its neighbors, but he said he thought the " enormous challenge" facing Alvarado Quesada will be restoring the stability that earned the country the nickname "the Switzerland of Central America."

But neither Alvarado Quesada, nor his conservative rival in the run-off, Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz, "provided significant details about their security agenda beyond vague promises to improve security," Bosworth said.

Alvarado Quesada has proposed enhancing training for the Costa Rica's national police and bolstering citizen-security programs as part of preventative anti-crime efforts.

While more and better police training is a positive step after the previous government's decision to reduce training in order to produce more officers, Alvarado Quesada's plans lack specifics, according to Insight Crime.

"President-elect Alvarado has promised greater gun control and asset-forfeiture laws, but even those promises have lacked details for implementation," Bosworth said. "Costa Rica needs better-paid and better-trained police forces as well as a strategy to combat rising organized crime."

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Drug-related violence is soaring in a quiet corner of Latin America, and it's not clear what the new president plans to do about it

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"Since 2012, we have seen an increase, and it's likely this curve will keep going up unless something extraordinary happens," Michael Soto, the deputy director of Costa Rica's Judicial Investigation authority, said in January. But the increase comes as deadly violence elsewhere in the region is declining, and the trend appears to be continuing.

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The consumption of drugs in Costa Rica has been increasing, and now there are more people, who decide to try alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or other illicit substances. According to the VI Annual Survey on Drug Use.

In the last month of 2018, 27.9% of those surveyed consumed alcohol, 10.5% smoked and 3.2% smoked marijuana. Tobacco is the only substance that shows a decrease; due to the enactment of the Anti-Tobacco Law in 2012 that has also allowed the null exposure of its advertising.

Also, the age group most seduced by drugs is that between 20 and 29 years old. When asked what are the places where it is easier to get illicit drugs, 42% revealed that in the neighborhood, 22% in bars and 12% in other people's homes. Finally, 66.9% of respondents have an unfavorable perception of the State's action regarding health and drug treatment; while 58.3% also consider unfavorable the police action against drug trafficking.

At the end of this, it is easy to deduce that despite the existence of institutions such as the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), the Costa Rican Institute on Drugs (ICD), the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (IAFA) and the Ministry of Public Security and its various programs to combat drug abuse, the evil continues to grow and even the population does not trust the actions of the authorities.

One of the most current drugs is "Krokodil" that is increasingly used by addicts in some parts of Europe coming to Costa Rica and is used as a substitute for Heroin, especially in the poorer regions. The toxic nature of this chemical causes the skin to change color and become scaly. Around the sites where the injection is made, it is covered with ulcers, the blood vessels rupture causing the death of the tissue being devoured by the chemical products of the drug, which rots the flesh to the bone, the teeth fall, brain damage is also common, tetanus, and blood poisoning is assured. Another drug called "Zombie" or "K2" (synthetic marijuana) produces behavior alterations, coming to seem really like a zombie especially in young people.

There should be an integral approach on the subject because it is not only about mitigating drug consumption with a few institutions and social actors; since drugs have become a public health problem that must be addressed from different angles and involving all sectors of the State showing the actions taken to solve this problem.

The executive director of the Costa Rican Association for the Study and Intervention in Drugs (ACEID), points out that it is essential that personal use is not punished, since the evidence shows that police and judicial intervention concerning consumption, rather distances users from public services and institutions.

The National Coordinator of the Regional Anti-drug Program, says that the prevention of drug use should be addressed comprehensively starting from the home with the education given to minors by the family, inculcating values, which are fundamental elements that will change negative behaviors in children and adolescents.

The professor of the School of Nursing at the University of Costa Rica, says that the age of the onset and the lack of control around drug use are the triggers and that it also becomes an individual, family and community problem.

Likewise, the person in charge of the process at the "Comprehensive Center for Drug Assistance to Minors", notes that in the first semester of 2018 a total of 1,174 minors have been treated at the evaluation service of this Children's Center.
Some tips to prevent the consumption of illicit substances.
The president of the "Casa Libertad Association", mentions some tips to prevent the use of drugs; such as parents teaching their children that they can face problems and get ahead without needing to use drugs; provide information about health, economic and legal damages that drug use cause and teach them that the use and abuse of alcohol and tobacco are not necessary for social success.

Finally, the head of the Prevention Unit of the ICD emphasizes that health services play a decisive role and must contemplate the social aspects necessary for the integral satisfaction of all citizens, prevention and treatment of problems associated with the use and abuse of psychotropic substances, always taking into account the family interaction of the drug consumer.

https://thecostaricanews.com/travel/

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I was born in Colombia, I come from humble parents but with good habits and love for God. I had the great opportunity to grow up with a special aunt in my life, she took me to live in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. I grew up there, I studied at Lehi High and then I started studying at BYU. In the year 2000 I returned to my land and obtained the title of Bachelor in Education Mension integral

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Illicit Drugs: The Plague that Continues to Invade Central America ⋆ The Costa Rica News

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The consumption of drugs in Costa Rica has been increasing, and now there are more people, who decide to try alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or other illicit substances. According to the VI Annual Survey on Drug Use. In the last month of 2018, 27.9% of those surveyed consumed alcohol, 10.5% smoked and 3.2% smoked marijuana.

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On February 19th, Ecuador's Anti-Corruption Secretary, Iván Granda, and Minister of Foreign Affairs & Human Mobility, José Valencia, hosted the first meeting for the creation of the International Anti-Corruption Commission. Attendees included the diplomatic corps, members of multilateral organizations, and civil society representatives.

Granda indicated that the three objectives of the Commission were:

1. Corruption prevention;

2. Investigation of alleged cases of corruption; and

3. Combating and prosecuting acts of corruption - including the repair and recovery of assets accrued through money laundering.

The Commission will operate in coordination with the United Nations (UN), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and Transparency International. The body will include five international experts to detect, investigate, report, and prosecute cases. However, the modus operandi is still in the works.

The commission is intended to support state institutions in charge of denouncing, detecting, investigating, and prosecuting acts of corruption. At the moment, the Commission is expected to operate until the end of President Moreno's term in 2021.

Since the start of Moreno's presidency in May 2017, his government has handled more than 500 complaints of possible corrupt acts committed by former public officials, which reflects Ecuador's history of corrupt public servants - including former Vice President Jorge Glas' involvement in the Brazilian firm Odebrecht's corruption schemes, for which he was sentenced to six years in prison. Odebrecht acknowledged giving bribes of $33.5 million to Ecuadorian officials in return for the awarding of state contracts between 2007 and 2016. This scandal broke during Rafael Correa's presidency - Lenin Moreno's predecessor.

At the moment, Ecuador ranks 114th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2018 Corruption Perception Index making it the 4th most corrupt country in South America. The U.S. Department of State's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Volume II Money Laundering (2017) also identified Ecuador as a major money laundering jurisdiction.

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Ecuador Cracking Down on Corruption | Lexology

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On February 19th, Ecuador's Anti-Corruption Secretary, Iván Granda, and Minister of Foreign Affairs & Human Mobility, José Valencia, hosted the first meeting for the creation of the International Anti-Corruption Commission. Attendees included the diplomatic corps, members of multilateral organizations, and civil society representatives.

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Snapshot

Corruption is a major obstacle for businesses investing or planning to invest in Ecuador. Several sectors (such as public services and public procurement) suffer from endemic corruption, and bribery and facilitation payments are widespread. Ecuador's anti-corruption legal framework covers various corruption offenses; gifts and hospitality offered with the intention to gain an undue advantage are illegal. However, these laws are poorly enforced, and government officials engage in corruption with impunity.

Last updated: January 2016
GAN Integrity

Judicial System

The judiciary carries a high corruption risk for companies operating in Ecuador. Political pressure and interference, as well as widespread corruption, impede the institution to a large extent. Judges are susceptible to bribes in return for favorable decisions and for accelerating the settlement of legal cases ( HRR 2014). The judiciary lacks independence, and the courts' efficacy in settling disputes and in challenging government regulations is weak (GCR 2015-2016). Judicial procedures are lengthy and complicated, and the courts' inefficiency and inconsistency sometimes cause trial delays (HRR 2014).

Corruption accusations are often politically motivated in Ecuador, and cases often get entangled in lengthy and inconclusive judicial proceedings (Global Security, June 2015). Furthermore, evidence suggests the outcomes of many trials were predetermined (HRR 2014).

Police

Businesses interacting with Ecuador's police sector face a high risk of corruption. The institution suffers from different forms of corruption, poor recruiting, and a lack of training and funding ( HRR 2014). The police do not reliably protect companies from crime or enforce law and order (GCR 2015-2016).

Public Services

The Ecuadorian public services sector carries a high corruption risk for business. Companies cite frequent demands of bribes and facilitation payments by local authorities in return for issuing necessary permits (Global Security, June 2015), and government regulations and inefficient government bureaucracy are burdensome for businesses (GCR 2015-2016). Conflicts of interest are widespread among local officials ( CatC 2011). Ecuador struggles with a large informal sector - over 30 percent of firms in Ecuador are not formally registered - which further exacerbates corruption within the regulatory framework ( The World Bank, 2012). Starting a business is more time-consuming yet less costly than the regional average while dealing with construction permits is less time-consuming and less costly than elsewhere in South America ( DB 2016).

In mid-2014, more than USD 13 million was reported stolen from the municipality account at the Central Bank of Ecuador by the mayor of Riobamba, Juan Salazar Lopez. Investigations into the case revealed that the mayor himself had disclosed the account password to unauthorized persons. The mayor was charged with embezzlement and sentenced to eight years in prison ( HRR 2014; Global Security, June 2015).

Land Administration

Property rights are guaranteed under Ecuadorian law but are not always protected in practice ( ICS 2015). An inefficient judiciary contributes to the weak enforcement of property rights; several recent cases have demonstrated the courts' inability to properly protect property owners' rights (BTI 2014; ICS 2015). Furthermore, private property has been jeopardized by the attitude of the government, which has frequently used the threat of embargo or nationalization to pressure private companies (BTI 2014). Registering property is less time-consuming and less costly than elsewhere in South America ( DB 2016).

Tax Administration

Tax rates and regulations are ranked among the most problematic factors to doing business in Ecuador (GCR 2015-2016). Companies also complain of frequent changes to the country' tax code ( ICS 2015). Surveyed firms express little trust in the Ecuadorian tax system, while almost half of all surveyed companies in Ecuador know of a company that evades taxes. Furthermore, the majority of companies believe that large companies pay fewer taxes, further aggravating the lack of trust in the system ( The World Bank, 2012). Paying taxes in Ecuador is almost twice as time-consuming as the average for South America ( DB 2016).

Customs Administration

Companies face a high corruption risk when dealing with Ecuador's customs authorities. Corruption is perceived as a barrier to trade in Ecuador; it is more problematic for importing than for exporting ( BTI 2014; GETR 2014). Dealing with customs procedures is burdensome, and irregular payments frequently occur (GCR 2015-2016; GETR 2014).

Public Procurement

Companies face a very high risk of corruption when doing business in Ecuador's public procurement sector. Companies believe that funds are often diverted towards companies and individuals due to corruption and perceive favoritism to be widespread among procurement officials (GCR 2015-2016). Further, there are reports of civil servants receiving 'commissions' from companies that are awarded government contracts ( BTI 2014).

Among the biggest corruption cases in the sector is the award of government contracts worth USD 167 million to the brother of Ecuador's President Correa, Fabricio Correa, during the first two years of the President's tenure ( CatC 2011). The companies awarded the contracts and with which Fabricio Correa was involved were registered on the State's Public Procurement website as unfulfilled contractors (Global Security, June 2015). When the case received media coverage, the President nullified the contracts associated with Fabricio Correa. In 2010, the Prosecutor General's Office rejected the accusations of corruption against Correa in several cases (Global Security, June 2015). However, corruption cases involving individuals with senior status have been known to get shuffled aside, while attacks are directed towards the respective whistleblowers (BTI 2014). Companies are recommended to use a specialized public procurement due diligence tool to help mitigate the risks associated with public procurement in Ecuador.

Natural Resources

The natural resources sector carries a moderate to high corruption risk for companies operating in Ecuador. The extractive industries account for a significant proportion of the Ecuadorian economy, making up more than half of the country's exports; however, the lack of transparency in the sector is detected in the absence of key budget figures and gaps in the disclosure of environmental impact assessment ( Natural Resource Governance Institute). For instance, in the hydrocarbon sector, information is published with a varying degree of transparency; national oil companies are given priority over foreign companies in the process of bidding on extractive rights in Ecuador (Natural Resource Governance Institute).

Legislation

The Ecuadorian anti-corruption legal framework is poorly enforced and only a very small percentage of surveyed respondents believe anti-corruption laws are effective ( Miller Chevalier, June 2012). Ecuador's Criminal Code covers the offenses of promising, offering or accepting a bribe or a facilitation payment. Passive and active bribery is punishable by imprisonment of up to five years. Extortion, abuse of office and embezzlement are also criminalized. Gifts and hospitality with an undue purpose are criminalized. The Organic Law on Public Servants establishes administrative sanctions for corruption among public functionaries. Money laundering is regulated by the Law for the Control of Money Laundering. All government officials and civil servants are subject to financial disclosure laws ( HRR 2014), but no provisions cover the bribery of foreign officials. Public access to information is guaranteed under Ecuadorian law, yet the government does not implement the law effectively (HRR 2014).

Ecuador has ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACAC) but has not complied with the main requirements of the IACAC. Ecuador is also a participant in the Andean Plan of Action Against Corruption.

Civil Society

Freedoms of press and speech are guaranteed under Ecuadorian law, but the government severely restricts these rights in practice. President Correa's administration has openly discredited and attacked private media as well as individual journalists ( FotP 2015). The Communication Law (in Spanish), imposes aggressive regulations on the media, fuelling a hostile environment for journalists, whom, in turn, increasingly practice self-censorship. Instances of intimidation, harassment, and attacks on journalists rose dramatically in 2014 (FotP 2015). Defamation and libel are criminalized in Ecuador, and several journalists have faced criminal and civil defamation cases in recent years (FotP 2015). Outlets that provide favorable coverage of the government are generally favored in the process of awarding public advertisement contracts (FotP 2015). Businesspeople generally avoid any association with media outlets that are critical of the government for fear of losing public contracts or being subjected to government audits in reprisal (FotP 2015). In 2014, the Superintendency of Information and Communication (SUPERCOM) ordered 'ratifications' be made to a cartoon published in El Universo depicting high-ranking officials' corruption. SUPERCOM also fined the paper El Universo for not scrutinizing the text in the cartoon prior to publishing ( FitW 2015). Instances of online censorship have occurred during 2014, including the suspension of Twitter accounts and the deletion of online content (FotP 2015). The media environment in Ecuador is considered 'not free' (FotP 2015).

Freedom of assembly is protected under the Ecuadorian Constitution, yet this is not always respected in practice ( HRR 2014). Ecuador's civil society is underdeveloped, and the government's monopoly over power has excluded any civic participation that is not in line with the government's approach ( BTI 2014). Furthermore, a 2013 presidential decree granted the government powers to intervene in the operations of NGOs and to forcibly dissolve them (FotP 2015). Evidence suggests that the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS) does not engage effectively with a large segment of the Ecuadorian civil society (Global Security, June 2015). Indeed, civil society does not participate in agenda formulation, policy-making, or government monitoring (BTI 2014).

Sources

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Corruption is a major obstacle for businesses investing or planning to invest in Ecuador. Several sectors (such as public services and public procurement) suffer from endemic corruption, and bribery and facilitation payments are widespread. Ecuador's anti-corruption legal framework covers various corruption offenses; gifts and hospitality offered with the intention to gain an undue advantage are illegal.

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Ecuador: los problemas ambientales que deben resolverse en el 2017

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Aunque el gobierno de Ecuador desechó hace tres años la Iniciativa Yasuní ITT, que proponía dejar bajo tierra millones de barriles de crudo a cambio de una compensación económica de...

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Cada nuevo año trae consigo diferentes desafíos. Estos seis temas estarán en el centro del debate ambiental durante 2019 en Ecuador.

¿Qué pasará con la consulta popular de 2018?

En febrero del 2018 los ecuatorianos fueron convocados a las urnas para decidir, a través de un referendo y una consulta popular, sobre siete temas cruciales para el gobierno del presidente Lenín Moreno. Dos de ellos eran de gran importancia para la gestión ambiental: la limitación de la minería metálica y la protección del Parque Nacional Yasuní.

En la pregunta 5 las personas debían responder si estaban de acuerdo con enmendar la Constitución de la República del Ecuador para que se prohibiera la minería metálica en todas sus etapas, en áreas protegidas, en zonas intangibles, y centros urbanos, de acuerdo al Anexo 5. El 68,62 % de los votantes dijo Sí. En el numeral 7 se preguntaba a los votantes si estaban de acuerdo con incrementar la zona intangible en el Parque Nacional Yasuní al menos en 50 mil hectáreas y reducir el área de explotación petrolera autorizada por la Asamblea Nacional de 1030 hectáreas a 300 hectáreas. El Sí obtuvo un 67,31 %.
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Expertos consultados aseguran que estas decisiones eran de inmediato cumplimiento, pero al parecer el Estado no las ha acatado con la rapidez que muchos esperaban y el reto está en que, durante 2019, sí se cumplan. Yaku Pérez, dirigente de la Confederación Kichwa del Ecuador ( Ecuarunari), asegura que "la decisión de la consulta es vinculante y se debía acatar pero el gobierno no lo ha cumplido". Según Pérez, el pueblo de Ecuador ya dio su veredicto a favor del futuro de las próximas generaciones y en contra de la contaminación ambiental, pero el Estado no está dispuesto a perder el dinero que dejan las actividades extractivas. "Pensar que el gobierno va a proteger los derechos de la naturaleza y los derechos colectivos sería una suprema ingenuidad", dice.

A Benito Bonilla, de la Fundación Pachamama y del colectivo Yasunidos, le preocupa la aplicación de la decisión popular este 2019. "En el caso del Yasuní todavía hay una lucha que dar. Está pendiente la posibilidad de que una consulta popular planteada por el colectivo Yasunidos deje bajo tierra el crudo del bloque 43, que es parte del ITT dentro del Parque. Hay una fuerte capacidad de movilización ciudadana y de presión social que espera que el gobierno atienda la voz".

Pero la preocupación también se extiende más allá del Yasuní. Para Bonilla, el reto es luchar por la protección de zonas que no son áreas protegidas, ni zonas intangibles, ni centros urbanos pero que poseen una importancia ecológica y ancestral para pueblos indígenas. Cita los casos de los Cofán de Sinangoe, en el norte de la Amazonía ecuatoriana, que lograron revertir decenas de concesiones mineras en su territorio y de la comunidad de Río Blanco, en zona de páramo en el macizo de Cajas, en el sur del país. En ambos casos la consulta popular no los amparaba, pero la justicia ecuatoriana falló a favor de las comunidades y prohibió la minería metálica.

Otro desafío es lograr que los fallos sean respetados. María Espinoza, de Amazon Frontlines, dice que las autoridades que deben hacerle seguimiento a estas decisiones judiciales no las están cumpliendo.

Consultas previas en el ojo de la tormenta

El 2019 será un año en el que habrá que seguir de cerca lo que sucederá con tres grandes proyectos extractivos y los conflictos socioambientales que ya arrastran. Mirador, Loma Larga y Fruta del Norte debían empezar a explotar minerales en 2019, pero solo el último podrá hacerlo. Entre las principales causas de los retrasos figuran denuncias sobre incumplimientos ambientales y cuestionamientos a los procesos de consulta previa.

La consulta previa que se debe realizar a los pueblos indígenas cuando los proyectos extractivos se ubican en sus territorios se convirtió en un tema polémico el 2018 y, es probable, que esa percepción se agudice. Las comunidades se quejan de que los procesos de información de las empresas extractivas son escasos e incompletos. En el peor de los casos, muchas veces, sostienen, no son realizados. Las empresas, por su parte, dicen que las consultas terminan siendo cooptadas por personas que se oponen al progreso y buscan dilatar los proyectos.

Santiago Yépez, presidente de la Cámara de Minería del Ecuador, le dijo al periódico La Hora que "si no se enmiendan, en el corto plazo, los problemas judiciales y de mala aplicación de consultas previas y populares, las proyecciones de crecimiento y generación de ingresos del sector se verían ralentizadas y podría ponerse en gran riesgo. Hay una alta conflictividad interna, donde sectores sociales opositores han tomado partido en instancias de decisión como el Consejo de Participación Ciudadana, Defensoría, y otras".

Yaku Pérez dice que en diciembre de 2017 tuvieron la última reunión con el presidente Moreno, donde él se comprometió a archivar las concesiones mineras que no habían cumplido con aplicar la consulta previa. "Pero hasta ahora el Ejecutivo no ha mandado a archivar ni una sola", agrega. Según cuenta, han sido las comunidades las que tuvieron que presentar sus casos ante la justicia y, gracias a eso, se lograron suspender dos proyectos Mineros, el de Río Blanco y el de Sucumbíos en territorio Cofán.

En el caso de los Cofán, los indígenas desconocían que su territorio estaba concesionado a la minería. Solo lo supieron hasta el 12 de enero de 2018, cuando vieron por primera vez varias máquinas en el cauce del río Aguarico, muy cerca del Parque Nacional Cayambe Coca. Esto los tomó por sorpresa pues, de acuerdo con el líder indígena Alex Lucitante, nunca fueron consultados. Los Cofán descubrieron que había 20 concesiones mineras otorgadas y 32 más en trámite. El 22 de octubre las instancias judiciales les dieron la razón a los indígenas y fallaron a su favor. Algo similar ocurrió con el proyecto minero Río Blanco, donde un juez prohibió la minería a pesar de que la mina de oro ya estaba en explotación. En este caso, existían múltiples reclamos por contaminación y por no haber realizado adecuadamente la consulta previa.

Yaku Pérez dice que el gobierno se opuso a esas dos demandas, litigó en contra de los indígenas en los tribunales de justicia y, en dos instancias, presentó un recurso extraordinario de protección a favor de las empresas ante la Corte Constitucional. El gran desafío en 2019, para él, es lograr una mayor voluntad política de diálogo por parte del gobierno.

Mientras tanto, en el proyecto minero Cascabel, ubicado en las provincias de Imbabura y Carchi, inició la fase de exploración avanzada para explotar oro y cobre sin cumplir con los requisitos de ley, entre ellos la realización de una consulta previa libre e informada con las comunidades de la zona.

Gestión y presupuesto para áreas protegidas

Este será un año difícil para las áreas protegidas en Ecuador. El presupuesto de apoyo al Sistema Nacional de Áreas Protegidas (SNAP) se redujo en un 33,12 %: pasó de 6,7 millones de dólares en 2018 a 4,5 en 2019. Esta disminución en los recursos que destinará el Ministerio del Ambiente a este tema, preocupa a los expertos pues el SNAP abarca cuatro regiones del país ─Galápagos, Costa, Sierra y Amazonía─ y alberga 56 reservas naturales que se extienden en aproximadamente el 20 % de la superficie del Ecuador.

Este recorte no solo afecta al sector ambiente sino que el gobierno ecuatoriano anunció una reducción en el presupuesto general de todas las entidades del Estado y esa es, además, una de las razones para la reestructuración de ministerios y entidades que ordenó el presidente Lenín Moreno en noviembre pasado. "Incluso se anunció un endeudamiento que se acerca a los 10 mil millones de dólares... En ese sentido es muy difícil pensar que va a haber más dinero para las áreas protegidas. El país estará en un escenario complicado este año", comenta Benito Bonilla.

La disminución del presupuesto afectará la gestión que se haga de la áreas protegidas, y las marinas son las que más preocupan, ya que su control, vigilancia y conservación suponen unos costos mayores que los de las áreas continentales. Para Felipe Vallejo, biólogo marino de la Fundación Equilibrio Azul, en 2019 será un reto darle mayor prioridad a estas áreas, para que los decretos que las crearon pasen a la realidad. El mar ecuatoriano presenta grandes desafíos, sobre todo en términos de garantizar controles eficaces en la pesca y garantizar la reproducción de especies que se encuentran en peligro. "Es importante detener la matanza de tiburones en Ecuador, ya que están siendo explotados de una manera insostenible y muchos pescadores artesanales encuentran la forma de evadir los límites que se imponen", dice Vallejo.

Algunos expertos consideran que se debe revisar y modificar el decreto 486 de 2007 que expide normas para la regulación de la pesca incidental de tiburón, su comercialización y exportación.

Por su parte, Bonilla ve un año retador para Ecuador no solo en cuanto a áreas protegidas sino para todo el sector ambiente, pues de enero a marzo el país se enfrentará a un escenario electoral con cambio de autoridades locales. También le preocupan algunas decisiones recientes. Por ejemplo, que el Ministerio de Energía y Recursos Naturales No Renovables deba coordinar y delegarle acciones al Ministerio del Ambiente, "eso significa que el Ministerio del Ambiente, que es la entidad gubernamental encargada de velar por la naturaleza y sus recursos, está subordinada a las competencias de un ministerio coordinador (el de Energía) que tiene intereses de explotación sobre ellos".

Indígenas aislados en medio de la transformación del Ministerio de Justicia

A pesar de la incertidumbre que reinó durante varios meses sobre qué entidad adoptaría las competencias del extinto Ministerio de Justicia, entre ellas la de velar por los derechos de los indígenas aislados, a mediados de noviembre el presidente Lenín Moreno firmó un decreto donde le otorgó las funciones a una nueva entidad: la Secretaría de Derechos Humanos. Esta decisión, aparentemente, dejaba resuelto el problema, pero expertos en el tema consideran que aún hay muchas dudas y preocupaciones sobre los pueblos indígenas en aislamiento voluntario (PIA).

El asunto central es que no hay certeza de si la nueva Secretaría también tendrá, como lo era en la época del Ministerio de Justicia, un presupuesto y un personal escaso para atender las necesidades de protección de los PIA. Es muy poco lo que se sabe sobre cómo la nueva entidad entrará a manejar este tema, a pesar de que están próximos a concluir los 60 días que se tienen para organizar esta reestructuración estatal.

Desde el Equipo Técnico de la Dirección de Protección a Pueblos Indígenas en Aislamiento Voluntario del Ministerio de Justicia (en reestructuración) aseguraron que todavía "existe una debilidad de recursos humanos, financieros, tecnológicos y logísticos que dificultan el control y la vigilancia y elevan el riesgo para el accionar del equipo de territorio". También mencionaron que se deben realizar patrullajes de monitoreo para el control de actividades ilícitas o unilaterales que pueden provocar diferentes presiones a los PIA y se debe trabajar de la mano con las comunidades cercanas a ellos. Aún así, se desconoce cómo se ejecutarán estas actividades.

De acuerdo con los expertos consultados, otro desafío será que, las personas que integren la dependencia de la Secretaría que estará a cargo de los PIA, tengan un enfoque en Derechos Humanos. Para el antropólogo Roberto Narváez, investigador que lleva 20 años trabajando en tierras del pueblo Waorani, donde se encuentran los aislados, esto no será fácil mientras el Estado también tenga en mente la explotación de hidrocarburos en el Parque Nacional Yasuní, donde se encuentra la zona intangible en que se mueven los PIA confirmados de Ecuador ─los Tagaeri y los Taromenane─. Según dice, esta actividad extractiva no es compatible con la protección de estas comunidades.

Paola Maldonado es una geógrafa que ha trabajado en temas de PIA y cree que estos pueblos tienen amenazas "por todo lado". Para ella, en 2019 se enfrentarán principalmente a tres obstáculos: el primero es una sociedad que los ignora y los invisibiliza; el segundo es un Estado que niega evidencias y las oculta para justificar cualquier tipo de intervención; y el tercero es el acoso que viven sus áreas de desplazamiento por cuenta del petróleo, la extracción de madera, la apertura de vías, y el cambio de uso de suelo que viene con la colonización. "Si se observa un mapa, la zona intangible es como un lunar que está cercado por la actividad petrolera, la extracción de madera y los proyectos de conectividad", concluye.

Amnistía para líderes ambientales

Durante el gobierno del presidente Rafael Correa una de las mayores críticas y denuncias que hicieron organizaciones de la sociedad civil e indígenas fue la de persecución y criminalización de líderes sociales y ambientales. A su llegada al poder, Lenín Moreno anunció una amnistía para todas esas personas, pero hasta ahora han sido pocos los liberados. Este será, sin duda, un tema que rondará constantemente durante 2019.

Yaku Pérez conoce bien el tema pues fue testigo de varias detenciones durante las protestas y denuncias que se hicieron contra el proyecto minero Río Blanco en la provincia de Azuay y que finalmente terminó con la prohibición de la minería en el lugar. "No ha habido más de cinco casos de amnistías en el Ecuador desde la llegada de Moreno. Lo más preocupante es que podrían resolverse con amnistía todos los casos, pero de qué sirve. Si se continúa con el extractivismo minero y petrolero seguramente habrá nuevas criminalizaciones".
*Este reportaje fue originalmente publicado en Mongabay Latam
Pérez ha sido abogado defensor en algunos de estos casos y según sus cuentas, en 2018, hubo 31 casos, entre detenidos y acusados judicialmente "y no se han parado actividades en aquellas concesiones que la justicia ha ordenado frenar".

Según el líder indígena y ambiental, en la última reunión que tuvieron en la Asamblea Nacional quedaron más de 150 personas pendientes por amnistías "y a eso hay que agregarle los nuevos casos... Podemos decir que 2019 nos recibe con poco más de 180. Casi la totalidad han sido criminalizados por hacer resistencia a proyectos extractivos", concluye.

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Cada nuevo año trae consigo diferentes desafíos. Estos seis temas estarán en el centro del debate ambiental durante 2019 en Ecuador. ¿Qué pasará con la consulta popular de 2018?

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Ecuador's geographical variety is nearly matched by its diverse migration patterns. Although it is a small Andean country of approximately 15.7 million people, Ecuador accounts for the largest Latin American nationality in Spain, the second largest in Italy, and one of the largest immigrant groups in metro New York. Ecuador also is an important migrant destination. The long-standing conflict in Colombia has driven tens of thousands of its citizens into Ecuador, making it the country in Latin America with the largest refugee population.

Since the early 1980s, Ecuador has experienced two major waves of emigration, sending 10 percent to 15 percent of Ecuadorians overseas. Today, an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million Ecuadorians live abroad. The first wave of migrants originated in southern Ecuador and departed in the early 1980s, heading mainly to the United States. The second wave left in the late 1990s and early 2000s and mostly went to Spain, the United States, and Italy. Since the mid-2000s emigration has slowed considerably, and the earlier waves have been replaced by a steady flow of Ecuadorians leaving to reunite with relatives abroad, most notably in Spain and, to a lesser extent, the United States and Italy.

Rafael Correa is the first president of Ecuador to reach out to Ecuadorians overseas. Since taking office in 2007, his administration has developed programs to encourage diaspora members to return. This state-led transnationalism coincided with the 2008 global economic crisis and Spain's efforts to encourage unemployed immigrants to return to their home countries. Although efforts to pull and push Ecuadorians to return initially had minimal success, return migration from Spain has increased recently-a pattern likely to continue in the short term.

As Ecuador experienced the mass emigration of the early 2000s, it also received significant inflows, mostly from its immediate neighbors, Peru and Colombia. Most Peruvians are economic migrants, while the majority of Colombians are refugees, many of whom await a government decision on asylum. Other recent immigrants include a relatively small number of "amenity/lifestyle" migrants, many of whom are retirees, from the United States, Canada, and Europe.

This country profile offers an overview of the historical and more recent migration patterns to and from Ecuador, examining policies in the country and beyond that affect migration, the role of remittances, and a focus on Ecuadorians in key destination countries.
Historical Background
The population of what is now Ecuador witnessed considerable disruption between 1470 and 1540. The Inca invaded from Peru during the latter half of the 15 th century, and Spanish conquerors arrived in 1534. As a result of the introduction of disease, abuse, and enslavement, more than 70 percent of the indigenous population died by the end of the century.

Few Spaniards or other Europeans immigrated to Ecuador during the colonial era, which lasted until 1822. The arrival of a few English men, some Spanish traders, and a handful of other Europeans was the exception.

In the mid-16 th century, at least two slave ships from Panama bound for Peru wrecked on the shores of what is now Esmeraldas Province. The African slaves established a maroon society (freed slaves), and maintained autonomy during much of the colonial era.

During the 16 th and 17 th centuries, colonial authorities in Quito arranged for the shipment of African slaves, who were put to work in Ibarra, Guayaquil, and the gold mines of modern-day Colombia (Popayán). A smaller number of slaves were imported to Quito, Cuenca, and other urban areas. The colonial district of Quito, which extended into southern Colombia, had approximately 12,000 slaves, with an unknown population of descendants of slaves in Esmeraldas.

With the exception of Spaniards who became traders, Ecuador received very few of the Europeans who migrated to Latin America during the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. An 1890 census of Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, recorded fewer than 5,000 immigrants, more than half of whom were from Peru.

During Ecuador's cocoa (chocolate) export boom of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, "Lebanese" began to immigrate to Guayaquil and quickly became merchants and traders. The term applies broadly to Arab-speaking, predominantly Christian, immigrants whose ancestry can be traced to Syria, Palestine, or Lebanon.

It is unknown how many "Lebanese" migrated to Ecuador, but the economic and political influence of their descendants has been much greater than their numbers. Two presidents in the 1990s were of Arab-origin descent, even as the community represented approximately 1,500 of the more than 1.2 million residents of Quito in 1991. Also, some of the most successful business families in Ecuador are "Lebanese."

Ecuadorian emigration prior to the 1960s was minimal. A small number of people migrated to Venezuela and by the 1940s to the United States. Between 1930 and 1959, 11,025 Ecuadorians received lawful permanent resident status in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). By the 1960s, small communities of Ecuadorians could be found in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.
Emigration Since the 1960s: Economic Crises and Two Waves of Emigration
The provinces of Azuay and Cañar, and Ecuador's third-largest city, Cuenca, formed the core migrant-sending zone in Ecuador in the 1970s and 1980s. The main sending communities practiced subsistence agriculture and had a tradition of women weaving Panama hats for export to New York, as well as male seasonal migration to the coast.

When the Panama hat trade declined in the 1950s and 1960s, pioneer migrants, mainly young and male, used this trade connection to migrate to New York, most of them without authorization. Most worked in restaurants as busboys or dishwashers, and a smaller number worked in factories or construction.

Migration remained slow but persistent during the 1970s; migrants from numerous communities in Azuay and Cañar provinces joined the clandestine migration networks that led people through Central America and Mexico en route to the United States. A small number migrated to Venezuela, whose oil-led economy was strong through the 1970s. As oil prices fell in the 1980s, Ecuadorian migration to Venezuela appears to have diminished.

Like many countries in Latin America, Ecuador in the 1970s experienced economic growth and improved living conditions. But in the early 1980s, oil prices collapsed, causing a debt crisis, an increase in inflation, and a dramatic decrease in wages. The crisis, Ecuador's first since 1960, was particularly onerous on subsistence farmers, thousands of whom opted to emigrate. Economic reforms only worsened conditions, driving more people to emigrate.

Most of these migrants paid intermediaries-coyotes or document forgers-for clandestine passage to the United States, overwhelmingly to metro New York, but also to Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Minneapolis. A 1986 U.S. immigration law that legalized nearly 3 million unauthorized immigrants resulted in lawful permanent resident status for 16,292 Ecuadorians, many of whom have since sponsored the legal emigration of family members.

Ecuador experienced another economic crisis in the late 1990s, the result of low oil prices and floods that damaged export crops, coupled with political instability and financial mismanagement. The national currency, the sucre, lost more than two-thirds of its value, and the unemployment rate rose to 15 percent and the poverty rate to 56 percent.

Several Spanish immigration policies have had an important impact on Ecuadorian migrants. Spain's 2000 Law on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners in Spain and their Integration (Ley Orgánica 4/2000) focused on stopping the flow of unauthorized immigrants but also on integrating immigrants who could prove, among other requirements, that they had been in Spain since at least June 1, 1999.

In January 2001, Ecuador and Spain signed a bilateral agreement that provided legal work visas for nearly 25,000 unauthorized Ecuadorians. The agreement was signed shortly after 12 Ecuadorian workers were killed in an accident on their way to work in fields in southern Spain.

Spain began requiring Ecuadorians to obtain a visa in 2003, effectively ending surreptitious "tourism" trips.

In 2005, Spain implemented a sweeping regularization law (Real Decreto 2393/2004) that granted legal status to nearly 200,000 Ecuadorians.

In 2009, Spain began three programs for the voluntary return of migrants-including a "pay-to-go" proposal-none of which have been very successful.

The crisis was directly responsible for a second wave of emigration, which sent between 500,000 and 1 million Ecuadorians overseas from 1998 to 2006, to the United States and Italy, but mostly to Spain, where few Ecuadorians lived prior to the crisis. This migrant flow was much more geographically and socioeconomically diverse. Emigrants came from every province, and were more urban and better educated; they also came from various ethnicities, including members of the Saraguro and Otavalo indigenous groups. Ecuadorians were able to migrate in such large numbers so quickly because of an existing agreement allowing Ecuadorians to enter Spain as tourists without visas (the law changed in 2003, see sidebar). Indeed, most of the first migrants in Spain were women who posed as tourists, some with the help of Ecuadorian travel agencies.

For its part, Spain offered plentiful, low-skilled work in the informal economy, and migrants did not have to worry about language differences. Most women worked as domestics while men found employment in the construction, agriculture, and service industries. By 2003, as many as 200,000 Ecuadorians resided in Spain, and for a few years Ecuadorians were the largest national immigrant group there. Ecuadorians also went to several other western European countries, most notably Italy.

Tightened borders in Central America and greater surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico border made clandestine migration to the United States more expensive and dangerous than migration to Spain, yet immigration from southern Ecuador, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, to the United States continued. Thousands of Ecuadorians traveled to Mexico or Guatemala on their way to the United States aboard fishing trawlers or other boats. Between 1999 and 2006 about 8,000 Ecuadorians were detained by the U.S. Coast Guard. Travel via this dangerous maritime route has largely ended; since 2009 the Coast Guard has detained fewer than 20 Ecuadorians.
Ecuadorians Abroad: Contemporary Trends in the Main Destination Countries
Since the wave of the early 2000s, Ecuadorian emigration has slowed considerably, especially to Spain. Most migration to Spain effectively halted with the 2003 visa requirement, with the important exception of family unification. The global recession starting in 2008 and Spain's deep economic problems also discouraged further emigration. The two waves of emigration and family unification have resulted in a large number of Ecuadorians living overseas. Slightly fewer than 1 million reside in the United States, Spain, and Italy (see Table 1). When all other countries are included, it is likely that between 1.5 million and 2 million Ecuadorians (legal and irregular) live overseas.
Ecuadorians in the United States
The number of Ecuadorians in the United States has held constant for nearly a decade, at an estimated 428,500 in 2013. Similarly, the geography of Ecuadorians has held constant with nearly 58 percent in the New York-New Jersey metro area, 6.5 percent in Miami, and 3.8 percent in Chicago. Ecuadorians are the third-largest Latin American immigrant group in the New York-New Jersey metro area, behind Mexicans and Dominicans, and the ninth largest nationally. As Ecuadorians have immigrated since the 1960s and have had many children in the United States, it is not surprising that the number of people who identify as Ecuadorian (approximately 665,000 in 2013) is 55 percent higher than the number of Ecuadorian immigrants.

Of the roughly 10,700 Ecuadorians granted legal permanent residency status in the United States annually between 2000 and 2013, more than 80 percent gained it through the "family sponsored preference" or "immediate relatives of U.S. citizens" categories of admission. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated that 170,000 unauthorized Ecuadorians were in the United States in 2012.

Despite the high cost and danger, Ecuadorians still are attempting to enter the United States along the U.S.-Mexico border. The number of Ecuadorians apprehended increased from 3,298 in fiscal year (FY) 2011 to 5,680 in FY 2013. Deportations (removals and returns) of Ecuadorians have fluctuated between 2,000 and 3,000 since 2008.

There is little social research on Ecuadorians in the United States. The 2013 American Community Survey (ACS), however, provides some important indicators on the socioeconomic status of Ecuadorian immigrants (see Table 2.) Their educational attainment is considerably less than the native-born population and that of Colombian and Peruvian immigrants. Ecuadorians' median household income is similar to that of their fellow Andean immigrants, although slightly lower than the overall South American immigrant average. Their poverty rate is higher than the South American average, and slightly higher than native-born households.
Ecuadorians in Spain
The 2005 Spanish regularization law granted legal status to nearly 200,000 Ecuadorians (see sidebar). The law implemented a municipal registry system, or padrón, through which it is believed that most immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, have registered because it grants access to the national health system and to schools. Ecuadorians are categorized as foreign nationals, or, if they have been granted Spanish citizenship, as Spanish nationals.

Although the number, location, and gender of the registered Ecuadorian population have deviated little since 2004 (see Figure 1), other characteristics have changed significantly. The Ecuadorian population hit a peak of 487,239 in 2005 before declining to 456,233 in 2013. About one-third lives in or near Madrid, and approximately 20 percent in Barcelona and Valencia/Murcia. Women account for about 52 percent of Ecuadorian migrants, down from more than 55 percent during the first wave of migration to Spain.

The most important changes for Ecuadorians in Spain have been the increase in the number of Ecuadorians with Spanish nationality, a shift in immigration pathways to family unification, and most recently an uptick in return migration. The number of Ecuadorians taking Spanish citizenship grew rapidly after the implementation of the 2005 regularization law. From 2006 to 2013 more Ecuadorians acquired Spanish nationality (232,645) than any other immigrant group; most under a law allowing Latin American immigrants to naturalize after two years of continuous legal residence in Spain. Many Ecuadorians who benefitted from the 2005 regularization were subsequently able to gain Spanish citizenship. Between 2008 and 2013 Spain's family unification policy allowed nearly 157,000 Ecuadorians to join family members in the country, facilitating legal residence and thus Spanish nationality (see Table 3).

Pichincha (Quito) and Guayas (Guayaquil) were the two most common origin provinces for Ecuadorians to Spain and the average age of migrants was 27 for males, 26 for females, according to a 2007 Spanish labor force survey. Ecuadorians were less well educated than most other Latin American immigrant groups in Spain and appear to be only moderately better educated than Ecuadorians in the United States. Twenty-nine percent had primary education or less and 60 percent some secondary education. This is reflected in labor force participation. More than 85 percent of Ecuadorians were employed; men primarily in construction, agriculture, and industry, while women were concentrated in domestic service, hotel work, and commerce.

Since 2007, conditions for Ecuadorians in Spain have deteriorated drastically. The prolonged economic crisis has led to very high unemployment and a variety of other financial difficulties.
Ecuadorians in Italy
Ecuadorians remain an important immigrant group in Italy. With a population of 91,145 in 2014 they constitute the second largest Latin American immigrant group behind Peruvians, and the 13th-largest national group overall. Since 2004 the number of Ecuadorians has increased 50 percent, and a lopsided sex ratio persists; nearly 59 percent of Ecuadorian migrants are women, most working as care providers or in other domestic services. Ecuadorians are heavily concentrated in Liguria (Genoa) and Lombardia (Milan).

The vast majority of Ecuadorians have legal residence due to Italy's numerous and generous regularization programs. In 2002, for example, the Bossi-Fini legislation enabled the regularization of 634,000 irregular immigrants, including 41,571 Ecuadorians. In 2013, 2,136 Ecuadorians were legally admitted to Italy; 1,449 joined family members and 402 had work permits.
Remittances and Return Migration
The presence of a large number of Ecuadorians overseas is important for the Ecuadorian state and families in a number of ways, including economic, political, and with regards to human-capital enrichment. Transnational practices include forms of political engagement, such as permitting Ecuadorians abroad to vote in Ecuadorian presidential elections (allowed since 2006), and the sending of remittances. A significant stream of remittances has flowed to Ecuador, the result of family commitments and plans for an anticipated return. One of the most important migration-related developments since the mid-2000s has been the increase in return migration, especially from Spain.
Remittances
Remittances are an important part of Ecuador's economy and for many households (see Figure 3). The amount of remittances increased quickly in the early 2000s, peaking at $3.3 billion in 2007 before plummeting during the global economic downturn in 2008. Remittances from Spain fell from about $1.2 billion in 2007 to $944 million in 2010. The importance of remittances to the Ecuadorian economy, measured as percent of gross domestic product (GDP), has fluctuated based on the strength of the Ecuadorian economy; total remittances have held steady at about $2.5 billion since 2010, but as oil revenues have increased, the relative contribution to the overall economy has declined to about 3 percent. About half of annual remittances come from the United States and 43 percent from Spain. Remittances remain the second largest source of foreign reserves.

Seven percent (266,313) of households in Ecuador received remittances at least once during 2010, the 2010 Ecuadorian Census found. Not surprisingly, the long-term core migrant-sending region, Cañar and Azuay provinces, had the highest percentages of recipient households, at 24.2 percent and 15.3 percent respectively; the biggest population centers, Guayas and Pichincha provinces, had the largest number of recipient households, at 72,160 and 55,376 respectively.

The 2007 Spanish labor force survey found that 68 percent of adult Ecuadorians in Spain sent remittances. Both men and women sent just over 2,000 euros per year, mostly to parents (60 percent) and children (20 percent). Based on a 2005 Ecuadorian government survey, researchers have found that the late 1990s wave of migration reduced poverty among households with a migrant abroad by about 20 percent, and that recipient households received about $1,600 in remittances annually. Data from the 2006 Living Standard Measurement Survey of Ecuador shows that nearly 44 percent of remittances received in the previous year were spent on food, 18 percent on education, 8.3 percent on eliminating debt, and 7.6 percent on health.
Return Migration
Ecuadorian return migration from Spain gained public attention as part of the exodus of immigrants and, to a lesser extent, natives from Spain in 2012-13. Spain recorded 396,658 fewer foreign nationals in 2014 than the previous year. Of that total, 56,466 were Ecuadorian, including those who had acquired Spanish nationality.

There are other indications that return migration to Ecuador has increased in the past few years. The 2010 Ecuador census found 63,888 people who had lived overseas in 2005; nearly half in Spain and about one-quarter in the United States. The Secretaría Nacional del Migrante (SENAMI, National Migrant Secretariat) estimated in early 2013 that it had assisted in the return of more than 40,000 Ecuadorians since 2008, with a larger return expected in 2013.

Spain's prolonged economic downturn has been the main cause of return migration. In addition, some Ecuadorians have been deported from Spain or the United States, while others have chosen to leave the United States because of an inability to achieve legal status and increased difficulties for unauthorized immigrants. In addition, the Ecuadorian government has sought to encourage return migration, while the Spanish government has created incentives for migrants to leave Spain.

In 2007, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's administration began a broad-based campaign to reach out to Ecuadorians overseas, or the "fifth region" as the diaspora was called, playing upon Ecuador's four traditional geographical regions. The program Plan Bienvenid@ A Casa: Por un regreso voluntario, digno y sostenible (Welcome Home: for a voluntary, dignified and sustainable return) was implemented by SENAMI and encouraged return migration for families by helping with their transition. Return migrants can repatriate their belongings duty-free and qualify for employment assistance and start-up funds for certain productive investments via Plan Cucayo. It is unclear if these efforts have enticed Ecuadorians who were not already planning to return, but the initiative marks a significant departure from previous administrations in focusing on the diaspora.

Meanwhile, in 2009 the Spanish government implemented several programs to encourage emigration of both authorized and irregular immigrants. The Programa de Abono Anticipado de Presentación a Extranjeros (APRE) was designed to encourage legal immigrants to return to their home country by offering them free transportation and their unemployment benefits in a lump sum. Nearly 45 percent of APRE returnees were Ecuadorian. A second program, Plan de Retorno Social, encouraged irregular migrants, refugees, and others to return in exchange for airfare to their home country and some financial assistance during the transition. From 2009 to 2013, 6,406 Ecuadorians were among the 23,970 immigrants who took advantage of these two programs, which generated far fewer departures than Spain desired.

The future of return migration will depend on the strength of both the Spanish economy and Ecuadorians' prospects for a productive return and (re)integration into the Ecuadorian economy and society. With Ecuador's stable economic growth and low unemployment, and Spain's persistently high joblessness, it seems likely that in the short term return migration from Spain will continue. Return migration from the United States of lawful permanent residents has never been large, but without the passage of significant immigration reform, more unauthorized Ecuadorians may choose to return.
Contemporary Immigration
The 2010 Ecuadorian census recorded 181,848 foreign born, just less than 1.3 percent of Ecuador's then population of 14.3 million. While the immigrant share of the population is small, it represents a significant increase from 2001, when the foreign-born population stood at 104,130. The increase is attributable mostly to an influx of Colombians, whose numbers surged more than 38,000 since 2001 to 89,931 in 2010, and a 164 percent increase in the number of Peruvians, from 5,682 in 2001 to 15,016 in 2010. Combined, Colombian (49.5 percent), U.S. (8.6 percent), and Peruvian (8.3 percent) immigrant populations accounted for two-thirds of all foreign born in Ecuador in 2010. The actual number of Peruvians and Colombians is unknown because the borders are porous, many Colombian refugees avoid official counts, and the dangers of the Colombia-Ecuador border region make data collection difficult.

Ecuador's decision in 2000 to switch its currency from the sucre to the U.S. dollar, known as dollarization, attracted many Peruvian migrants. Cuenca, situated in the middle of the original core migrant-sending zone to the United States, is the most popular provincial destination for Peruvians as U.S.-bound migration has tightened the labor market and increased wages. Since 2006, Ecuador has struck bilateral agreements with Peru on migrant regularization resulting in Ecuador periodically legalizing unauthorized Peruvians.

Armed conflict among the Colombian military, paramilitaries, and the rebel group FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces) has been an important push factor for Colombians. The breakdown in peace talks in 2002 prompted a surge in refugees, and even though the Colombian government and the FARC have been in peace negotiations since 2012, government and FARC military operations continue.

This violence, coupled with herbicide spraying programs to eradicate coca crops in southern Colombia (via the United States' Plan Colombia), have displaced tens of thousands, leading to the largest refugee population in Latin America. Nearly 147,000 Colombians lived in Ecuador as refugees or in refugee-like situations in 2014, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates. Ecuadorian estimates are lower, with the government recognizing only 55,840 people as refugees in 2013. In addition to the border region, many Colombians live in Quito and Guayaquil.

The Ecuadorian government has struggled to address the refugee crisis. Since 2000 nearly 60,000 Colombians have received refugee status in Ecuador, more than 34,000 from 2009 to 2010 alone. The dramatic increase in 2009-10 resulted from the Correa administration's "Enhanced Registration Process," which saw teams of government workers seek out Colombians and quickly determine their asylum applications. The program was short-lived and in 2012 Ecuador implemented a new policy (Presidential Decree 1182) that was more restrictive. Of the 16,952 asylum applications received by Ecuador in 2012, only 1,543 were accepted-a rate of 9.1 percent, which was considerably lower than the previous average acceptance rate of nearly 25 percent. In 2014, almost 15,000 cases were pending, and hundreds of new asylum applications are submitted each month.

Other nationalities have migrated to Ecuador for economic opportunity and retirement amenities. More than 15,000 Americans were counted in the 2010 census, split nearly evenly among Ecuador's largest urban areas, Guayas (Guayaquil), Pichincha (Quito), and Azuay (Cuenca). Cuenca has attracted the most attention as a retirement destination for a small (3,272) but growing number of Americans. As seen elsewhere in Latin America, particularly in Costa Rica and Panama, even small numbers of relatively affluent foreigners can have a significant economic and cultural effect.

A moderate number of Chinese and a smaller number of other Asians have immigrated to Ecuador recently. The 2010 census recorded 2,906 Chinese, more than double the 1,200 in the 2001 census. Despite their small numbers, the presence of Chinese immigrants is visible in the Chinese discount clothing stores that have appeared in nearly every Ecuadorian city.
Contemporary Migration Issues Facing Ecuador
Ecuador faces several migration-related challenges. First, the Colombian refugee situation remains a difficult humanitarian issue, and the flow of unauthorized immigrants will likely continue in the near future. Ecuador has retreated from its 2009 Enhanced Registration Policy, and has made gaining refugee status more difficult. Mistrust of and even open hostility towards Colombians persists. Second, Ecuador may receive a significant number of return migrants from Spain if high unemployment there continues. The Correa administration's state-led transnationalism may have been designed more to continue the flow of remittances than to actually encourage permanent return migration. If a large number of migrants do return to Ecuador, they will need to find employment and reintegrate into Ecuadorian society. Return migrants may bring with them capital, business experience, and a desire to innovate and create social change, but the economic and political environment contexts are critical. Ecuador's low unemployment and government spending may help the transition, but challenges remain. Many return migrants to southern Ecuador re-migrated to the United States after their economic enterprises failed or when they could not earn what they were accustomed to in the United States. The children of migrants raised abroad also face serious cultural adjustment issues upon return to Ecuador. Ecuador also continues to combat sex trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Although the U.S. Department of State reported in 2014 that most Ecuadorian trafficking victims are women and children within the country, Ecuador is also the destination of exploited women and girls from Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru, and the source region for a small number of Ecuadorian women who are sex trafficked to Colombia and Brazil.

The most recent wave of emigration was instigated by an economic and political crisis; the first wave in the 1980s was as well, but had been developing for more than 20 years when the debt crisis occurred. Ecuador does not face an imminent economic or political crisis, but the country's economy relies heavily on oil export and government spending. If those two pillars were to collapse then a large number of Ecuadorians may look overseas again, most likely to where a significant number of their family, friends, and compatriots reside: Spain and the United States. Until that time, (should it happen at all) Ecuador will likely be addressing the complexities associated with a large refugee population, return migration, and regional increases in lifestyle migrants.

The author is grateful for the assistance of Seaira Christian-Daniels on this article.
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Herrera, Gioconda, Maria Cristina Carillo, and Alicia Torres. 2005. La migración ecuatoriana: transnacionalismo, redes, e identidades. Quito, Ecuador: FLACSO-Plan Migración, Comunicación y Desarrollo.

Herrera, Gioconda, Maria Isabel, and Alexandra Escobar. 2012. Perfil Migratorio del Ecuador 2011. Ecuador: International Organization for Migration. Available Online.

Hiemstra, Nancy. 2013. Geopolitical Reverberations of US Migrant Detention and Deportation: The View from Ecuador. Geopolitics 17 (2): 293-311.

Guglielmelli White, Ana. 2011. In the shoes of refugees: providing protection and solutions for displaced Colombians in Ecuador. Research paper 217, UNHCR Policy Development and Evaluation Service, Washington, DC. Available Online.

Istituto Nazionale di Statistica Italy. 2014. Resident Population Data. Available Online.

Jokisch, Brad and David Kyle. 2005. Las transformaciones de la migración transnacional del Ecuador, 1993-2003. In La migración ecuatoriana: transnacionalismo, redes, e identidades, eds. Gioconda Herrera, Maria Cristina Carillo, and Alicia Torres. Quito, Ecuador: FLACSO-Plan Migración, Comunicación y Desarrollo.

Jokisch, Brad and Jason Pribilsky. 2002. Economic Crisis and the New Emigration from Ecuador. International Migration 40 (4): 75-102.

Kyle, David. 2001. Transnational Peasants: Migration, Networks and Ethnicity in Andean Ecuador. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lane, Kris. 2002. Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Levinson, Amanda. 2005. The Regularisation of Unauthorized Migrants: Literature Survey and Country Case Studies, Regularisation programmes in Italy. Oxford, UK: COMPAS. Available Online.

Margheritis, Ana. 2011. Todos Somos Migrantes (We are all migrants): The Paradoxes of Innovative State-led Transnationalism in Ecuador. International Political Sociology 5: 198-217.

Morales, Laura and Katia Pilati. 2014. The political transnationalism of Ecuadorians in Barcelona, Madrid and Milan: the role of individual resources, organizational engagement and the political context. Global Networks 14 (1): 80-102.

Newson, Linda A. 1995. Life and Death in Early Colonial Ecuador. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM). 2012. Panorama Migratorio de América del Sur. Buenos Aires, Argentina: OIM. Available Online.

Roberts, Lois J. 2000. The Lebanese Immigrants in Ecuador. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Simanski, John F. 2014. Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2013. Washington, DC: DHS Office of Immigration Statistics. Available Online.

Spain, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas. 2014. Labor Force Survey (EPA). Available Online.

---. 2014. Preview of the Continuous Municipal Register Statistics at 1 January, 2014. Press release, April 22, 2014. Available Online.

---. 2014. Municipality Survey (Padrón). Available Online.

Spain, Ministerio de Seguridad Social. 2014 Anuario de Estadísticas Spain. Various years. Available Online.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). 2008. Ecuador: Las cifras de la migración nacional. Quito, Ecuador: UNFPA and FLACSO. Available Online.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 2014. 2014 UNHCR country operations profile-Ecuador. Accessed October 10, 2014. Available Online.

---. 2014. Statistical Yearbook, Various Years. Geneva: UNHCR. Available Online.

U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, various years. American FactFinder. Available Online.

U.S. Coast Guard. Alien Migrant Interdiction. Last updated October 20, 2014. Available Online.

U.S. Department of State. 2014. Trafficking in Persons Report 2014: Ecuador. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State. Available Online.

World Bank Prospects Group. 2014. Annual Remittances Data, April 2014 update. Available Online.

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Ecuador: From Mass Emigration to Return Migration?

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This country profile analyzes Ecuador's migration trends and examines how remittances and return migration have become an important policy focus for a country with an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million nationals living abroad, chiefly in the United States, Spain, and Italy.

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In Numbers Operational Updates
* The state of emergency for human mobility has been extended until November 2019.

* 80,134 people benefited from WFP's food vouchers. The majority were Venezuelans (91.5 percent), followed by Colombians (8.1 percent) and a few beneficiaries of other nationalities.

* 3,290 people, around 70.6 percent of them from Venezuela, were assisted at shelters and canteens managed by partner organizations. WFP started working on technical guidance to strengthen and improve the food security and nutrition capabilities of these institutions.

* 3,100 vulnerable Venezuelans received one-time food assistance at immigration checkpoints.

* 774 pregnant adolescents received a food voucher to contribute to their food security and nutrition.

* WFP conducted an assessment at the northern border to identify the migratory paths, needs and risks encountered by Venezuelan migrants. Food access is among their main concerns.

* WFP supported the national dialogue for the design of gender-sensitive agricultural policies led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. This encounter brought together rural women, government officers, Academia and NGOs to socialize the main findings from the previous regional meetings held in September and to agree on the next steps for the formulation of a specific public policy for rural women.

* In coordination with local governments, WFP continued its visits to local schools to reinforce key nutritional messages. Additional kitchen supplies were also distributed benefiting 11,150 children from 147 schools.

* Through WFP's support, the Ministry of Education is discussing the legal framework that will facilitate the transition towards a renewed and improved school meals programme that includes fresh and healthy products.

* As part of the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (CAP) process, two additional focus groups with Awa and Afro Ecuadorian communities were held. This is part of the gender mainstreaming strategy of the Binational Climate Change Project.

* WFP presented the Fill the Nutrient Gap study to over 400 participants that attended the International Scientific Convention of the Technical University of Manabí.

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WFP Ecuador Country Brief, October 2019 - Ecuador

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In Numbers Operational Updates * The state of emergency for human mobility has been extended until November 2019. * 80,134 people benefited from WFP's food vouchers. The majority were Venezuelans (91.5 percent), followed by Colombians (8.1 percent) and a few beneficiaries of other nationalities.

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After the global crisis of 2009, the Ecuadorian economy began to recover and grew by 3.5% in 2010, reaching 7.8% in 2011. In 2012, the economy remained robust, with a growth rate of 5.1%.

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Ecuador's New Economic Plan Explained

Ecuador has developed a new economic plan designed to put the country's debt on a firm downward path, create jobs, protect the poor and most vulnerable, and bolster the fight against corruption.

The plan, supported by a US$4.2 billion Extended Fund Facility from the IMF, along with additional financial support from the international community, will give Ecuador the boost needed to restore sustainable growth that benefits all Ecuadorians.

In the following interview, Anna Ivanova, IMF's mission chief for Ecuador, discusses the details of the economic plan.
Ecuador's economy has been one of the most stable in Latin America. Why did the country decide to come to the IMF?
Ecuador has enjoyed a healthy economy supported by the dollarization regime-the country uses the US dollar for its currency-and high oil prices. However, oil wealth and dollarization are double-edged swords. Over the past decade, Ecuador's policies were inconsistent with the dollarization regime. Wage increases outpaced productivity growth and hurt the country's competitiveness.

The oil price plunge of 2014 and the subsequent US dollar appreciation exposed the underlying weaknesses of the economy. To finance growing fiscal imbalances, the previous government resorted to central bank financing. Public debt doubled over the past five years and international reserves fell to very low levels.

The current government of Ecuador decided to proactively come to the IMF for support to tackle underlying economic vulnerabilities, restore growth, and improve social outcomes.
What does the new economic plan seek to achieve?
Ecuador has committed to a new economic program that seeks to put public debt firmly on a downward path and supports policies that will help lift growth and boost productivity. The program strongly supports the government's prosperity plan and is based on four key pillars:

fortify the institutional foundations of Ecuador's dollarization;

boost competitiveness and create jobs;

promote shared prosperity and protect the poor and most vulnerable; and

improve transparency and strengthen the fight against corruption.

This is an ambitious reform agenda, but these reforms are necessary to strengthen the economy and institutions in Ecuador.
As Ecuador is a dollarized economy, a strong US dollar can raise the price of Ecuador's goods, thereby hurting the country's competitiveness in the global market. How does the plan address this challenge?
Raising Ecuador's competitiveness and raising productivity will require a concerted effort. Since Ecuador uses the US dollar as its currency, it is not able to use exchange rates as a tool to make its exports more competitive in the global market. Therefore, the country will have to rely on policies that allow for internal devaluation instead.

First and foremost, reigning in government spending, particularly through the optimization of the wage bill, will be important to make Ecuador's exports more attractive. Moreover, allowing for less rigidity in wages and prices could help support external adjustment. This can be achieved through policies that remove rigidities in the labor and product markets and in the financial sector.

How will the program support jobs and more workers in the formal labor market?

In addition to what I mentioned, other reforms to make the country an attractive business destination and to boost growth and more formal employment include reviewing the system of taxation and removing obstacles to business formation and operation. Other key reforms include taking steps to encourage private investment, deepening the capital markets, opening international trade, and creating better conditions for participation of women in the labor market.

How does Ecuador fare on social indicators and how will the government protect social spending under the plan?

Ecuador has made substantial gains in reducing poverty over the past two decades, since the country adopted dollarization. The percentage of the population living below the national poverty line has fallen from 64.4 percent in 2000 to 21.5 percent in 2017 and the share of the population living below US$1.90 a day fell from 28.2 percent in 2000 to 3.6 percent in 2016.

While these are notable achievements, poverty rates among the rural and indigenous populations remain high. While social assistance spending is high by regional standards and there is good coverage of those in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, the authorities see scope to do more. Therefore, the government included measures in the plan to continue protecting the poor and most vulnerable. These include:

increasing spending on social assistance programs, such as Bono de Desarrollo Humano, Bono Joaquin Gallegos Lara as well as extending the coverage of non-contributory pensions;

developing a social registry to improve targeting of social programs; and

increasing the efficiency and quality of primary education and health spending to improve outcomes and enhance the quality of the labor force and external competitiveness of the economy.

As you mentioned, one of the key priorities of the new plan is to continue to improve transparency and bolster the fight against corruption. Why does this matter for the economy?
The government is committed to promoting transparency and fighting corruption in the country because it impacts all corners of the economy. These efforts will help improve running businesses, lower public financing costs, and support private investment and jobs. Some key measures include:

anti-corruption legislation, which will enhance the independence and power of law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, as well as improve access to government operation information;

publishing central bank financial statements as they become available in conformance with international financial reporting standards;

developing anti-money laundering and countering financial terrorism (AML/CFT) national risk assessment that properly prioritizes corruption-related threats and incidents; and

gaining membership into Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to help improve transparency in the oil sector.

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Ecuador has developed a new economic plan designed to put the country's debt on a firm downward path, create jobs, protect the poor and most vulnerable, and bolster the fight against corruption. The plan, supported by a US$4.2 billion Extended Fund Facility from the IMF, along with additional financial support from the international community, will give Ecuador the boost needed to restore sustainable growth that benefits all Ecuadorians.

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We spoke to a New York-based activist about the movement for indigenous rights throughout the Americas.

People celebrated in Quito, Ecuador, on Sunday after the government of President Lenín Moreno agreed to repeal a decree that ended fuel subsidies. Credit... Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

El Espace is a column dedicated to news and culture relevant to Latinx communities. Expect politics, arts, analysis, personal essays and more. ¿Lo mejor? It'll be in Spanish and English, so you can forward it to your tía, your primo Lalo or anyone else (read: everyone).

Over the past few years, Indigenous Peoples' Day has been adopted in a number of states and cities in the United States as a justice-oriented answer to Columbus Day - a way to focus on Indigenous people and acknowledge the impact of Christopher Columbus's voyages to the Americas on the Native people who were already here. But in addition to being a corrective, the day also highlights the Indigenous groups still preserving their cultures in the United States and abroad.

Take Ecuador, for example: Last week, thousands of people took to the streets to protest austerity measures imposed by the country's president, Lenín Moreno, that disproportionately affected Indigenous Ecuadoreans. Many of the demonstrations were led by Indigenous groups, and on Sunday movement leaders struck a deal with Mr. Moreno to end the protests.

Charlie S. Uruchima, an activist based in New York who supported the protests in Ecuador, said the demonstrations were a result of "built-up anger and frustration" about the marginalization of Indigenous groups in the country. He referred to comments made by Jaime Nebot, a former mayor of Guayaquil, when asked on camera what message he had for the protesters. Nebot said, essentially, that the protesters should stay in the "páramo," referring to mountain villages where many Indigenous groups reside.

But this sort of dismissal is perhaps what motivated the protesters to head to Quito, Ecuador's capital, in the first place. "They're more and more willing to be out in the streets," Uruchima said, connecting the movement to an Indigenous uprising in the 1990s. Young people "who heard these stories or grew up with parents who were involved in the movement, they're also at the helm," Uruchima added, and they're "using this opportunity to assert their power and presence."

The demonstrations in Ecuador reflect the broader struggle for Indigenous visibility across the Americas. Uruchima, for instance, has a radio show, " Kichwa Hatari," that he records in Kichwa, an Ecuadorean variant of Quechua, as a way of preserving the language, which has roots in the Andes and is spoken in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.

In a 2014 interview with The New York Times, Uruchima said he hoped the radio show, which he hosts with three others, would become a way for Kichwa speakers "to reach out to each other and articulate the issues affecting the community as a whole."

"We're looking for ways to create a solidarity network as concerned youth," Uruchima said recently about his work supporting the protests in Ecuador from afar, including organizing concurrent protests and a fund-raising campaign. "The community that I work with here has become my family."

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In Ecuador and Beyond, Indigenous Groups Are Fighting to Be Seen

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We spoke to a New York-based activist about the movement for indigenous rights throughout the Americas. El Espace is a column dedicated to news and culture relevant to Latinx communities. Expect politics, arts, analysis, personal essays and more. ¿Lo mejor?

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Area: 283,561 square km. Located on the Equator in northwestern South America, Ecuador borders Colombia, Peru, and the Pacific Ocean. The Galapagos Islands consists of 18 main islands offshore of the South American mainland and are under Ecuadoran administration. Dramatic shifts in terrain and climate characterize Ecuador proper. The Amazon Basin occupies the eastern interior and comprises tropical rainforest. Climate is modified by high elevation in the highlands of the Andes Mountain range, which dominates central areas, stretching north to south. Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano in the world, located south of Quito. Temperate and alpine climate occur in highland areas. Pacific coastal areas include of forest and mangroves and experience a tropical climate. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, floods, and droughts are natural hazards. Environmental issues include deforestation, soil erosion, pollution, and the degradation of interior tropical rainforest and Galapagos Islands ecosystems. Ecuador is divided into 24 administrative provinces.

Population: 14,790,608 (July 2010)

Annual Growth Rate: 1.466% (2010)

Fertility Rate: 2.46 children born per woman (2010)

Life Expectancy: 72.58 male, 78.6 female (2010)
Peoples
mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white): 65%

Amerindian: 25%

Spanish/other: 7%

black: 3%

Most Ecuadorans are mestizo. Amerindians constitute one-quarter of the population. Whites and black Africans together account for one-tenth of the population.

Languages: Spanish (89%), Quichua dialects (10%), other Amerindian languages (1%). Languages with over one million speakers include Spanish (13.2 million) and Quichua dialects (1.5 million).

Literacy: 91% (2001)
History
Ancient Amerindian civilizations prospered in modern-day Ecuador prior to the Inca Empire conquering the region. The Spanish invaded in the 1530s and began colonization. Much of the indigenous Amerindian population perished from disease during the first years of Spanish rule while the remainder engaged in forced labor. Ecuador rebelled against Spanish rule in the early nineteenth century and in 1822 drove away Spanish forces and joined the Republic of Gran Colombia. By 1830, Ecuador seceded as an independent nation. Political instability and frequent changes in government administration marked most of the nineteenth century. The Catholic Church played an important role in unifying the country during this period. Many Ecuadorans relocated from the highlands to coastal areas in the late nineteenth century as the cocoa industry grew with worldwide demand. As the profitability of cultivating cocoa declined in the early twentieth century, political instability returned and a military coup occurred in 1925. In the 1940s, Ecuador lost large amounts of territory claimed in the Amazon Basin to Peru. The remainder of the twentieth century was characterized by alternating periods of political stability and instability. A military dictatorship ruled during the 1970s and democratic rule occurred from 1980 to the early 1990s. From the late 1990s to late 2000s, various political rulers vied for power and civil uprisings were common. A new constitution went into effect in 2008. In recent years, the government has focused on improving living conditions and pursuing social justice.[1]
Culture
Contemporary Ecuadoran culture draws heavily upon indigenous and Spanish influences as reflected by most the population identifying as mestizo. The Catholic Church has historically been the dominant socio-religious institution and remains a vibrant traditional faith, but in recent years few attend mass regularly and the Church's role in society has been diminished. Some indigenous groups strongly adhere to their traditional languages and customs. African slaves shipwrecked in the mid-sixteenth century have given rise to Afro-Ecuadorans which have brought some aspects of African culture into the regions where they reside. Ecuador experiences a high degree of regionalism, with some of the greatest differences and rivalry occurring between Guayaquil and Quito. Lunch is the primary meal of the day and common foods include plantains, fish, beans, potatoes, meat, and rice. Music and family occupy important roles in society.[2] Alcohol and cigarette consumption rates are low compared to the worldwide average.
Economy
GDP per capita: $7,600 (2009) [16.4% of US]

Human Development Index: 0.695

Corruption Index: 2.5

The economy has consistently relied on oil export earnings for stabilization and modest levels of growth, resulting in high susceptibility to changes in world oil prices and demand. To respond to economic crisis in 1999 and 2000, the government adopted the US dollar as legal tender in March 2000. Poverty and low standards of living are major issues which frustrate economic development as 35% of Ecuadorans live below the poverty line. The global financial crisis and declining oil prices in the late 2000s have contributed to recession in recent years. Oil, fish, lumber, and hydropower are natural resources. Ecuador has one of the largest proven oil reserves in Latin America. Services employ 70% of the labor force and generate 58% of the GDP whereas industry employs 21% of the population and generates 35% of the GDP. Major industries include oil, food processing, clothing, wood products, and chemicals. Agriculture accounts for less than ten percent of the work force and GDP. Fruit, coffee, cocoa, rice, potatoes, manioc (tapioca), sugarcane, livestock, dairy products, wood, fish, and shrimp are common crops and agricultural goods. Over 25% of imports and exports are trafficked with the United States, making it the primary trade partner. Other important trade partners include Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela.

Ecuador ranks among the most corrupt Latin American countries. Illicit drug operations and insurgents often cross over the Colombian border. Cocaine produced in Colombia and Peru are often trafficked through Ecuador to the United States. Ecuador is highly vulnerable to money laundering and banking associated with illicit drug dealers as Ecuador has adopted the United States dollar since 2000 and has few regulations to safeguard against money laundering. Past presidential administrations have been accused of corruption.
Faiths
Christian: 99%

other: 1%
Christians Denominations Members Congregations
Catholic 12,572,017

Latter-day Saints 190,498 300

Seventh Day Adventists 74,096 158

Jehovah's Witnesses 67,135 831
Religion
85% of Ecuadorans are nominal Catholics, with 15% regularly practicing their faith. Attendance at mass appears to have increased in recent years due to proselytism initiatives by the Catholic Church. There are over one million non-Catholic Christians and the largest denominations include Southern Baptists, Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, and Evangelicals. In the Guayaquil area, many mestizos are Protestant. Protestant megachurches continue to experience strong growth.[3]
Religious Freedom Persecution Index:
The constitution protects religious freedom and prohibits religious discrimination. The government has generally upheld the constitution. Religious groups and all nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are required to register with the government. To register, a religious group must submit the names and signatures of at least 15 members, have nonprofit status, and possess a charter. All nonprofit organizations must report how any government funding has been spent. The government recognizes major Catholic holidays as national holidays. There have been no recent reports of societal abuse of religious freedom.[4]
Largest Cities Urban: 66%
Guayaquil, Quito, Cuenca, Portoviejo, Machala, Santo Domingo, Ambato, Manta, Durán, Riobamba, Loja, Ibarra, Quevedo, Milagro, Esmeraldas, Babahoyo.

All 16 cities with over 100,000 inhabitants have an LDS stake or district and multiple congregations. 47% of the national population resides in the 16 largest cities.
LDS History
In October 1965, Elder Spencer W. Kimball dedicated Ecuador for missionary work.[5] That same year, the first full-time missionaries arrived to proselyte.[6] Based in Peru, the Andes Mission initially administered Ecuador until the creation of the Ecuador Mission in 1970, renamed the Ecuador Quito Mission in 1974. Seminary and institute began in 1971. The Church created a second mission based in Guayaquil in 1978. In 1980, the Church published the Book of Mormon translation in Quichua.[7] In 1981, the Church created its first all Amerindian stake in Latin American in Otavalo. International LDS leaders have suggested for decades that the Otavalo are among the descendants of Book of Mormon peoples.[8] LDS apostle Elder M. Russell Ballard toured Ecuador in 1989.[9] Ecuador's third mission, the Ecuador Guayaquil North Mission, was organized in 1991.[10] In early 1992, a missionary training center was completed in Bogota, Colombia, which trained new missionaries from Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela destined to serve in one of these nations.[11] Strong leadership and membership growth was apparent in the Guayaquil area in the early 1990s as the Guayaquil Ecuador East Stake divided to create two additional stakes.[12] There have been only a handful of instances in LDS Church history where three stakes were made from one. One stake divided into three stakes again in 1997 in Quevedo.[13] In 1997, local and regional church leaders set a goal for one million temple open house attendees once the Guayaquil Ecuador Temple was completed.[14] In 1997, President Hinckley met with the Ecuadoran president.[15] One Latter-day Saint perished in an earthquake in Portoviejo in 1998.[16] The Guayaquil Ecuador Temple open house received strong media attention as seven television stations, seven newspapers, two magazines, and a radio station reported the event.[17] Flooding in 2001 and 2002 affected dozens of LDS families and damaged Church several church meetinghouses.[18] Ecuador pertained to the South America North Area prior to 2009 and at present is assigned to the South American Northeast Area.
Membership Growth
LDS Membership: 190,498 (2009)

There were approximately 1,000 Latter-day Saints in 1970, increasing to 3,226 by 1975. Rapid membership growth occurred from the late 1970s to early 1990s as a result of high receptivity to the Church, low baptismal standards for converts, and high member involvement in missionary work through referral-based proselytism. Membership reached 19,000 by 1978 and 43,000 in 1986. By early 1991, there were 70,000 members.[19] By year-end 2000, there were 149,938 members.

Membership growth slowed substantially in the 2000s as membership increased to 161,396 in 2003, 170,736 in 2005, and 185,663 in 2008. Annual membership growth rates during this period ranged from two to three percent as membership generally increased by approximately 5,000 a year. In August 2010, the Ecuador Quito Mission baptized 202 converts. In 2009, one in 78 was nominally LDS.
Congregational Growth Wards: 224 Branches: 76
There were 96 congregations in 1990, including 46 wards. The number of congregations tripled in the 1990s to 248 in 1993 and 383 in 1997. Congregational decline began in the late 1990s. By year-end 2000, there were 331 congregations (202 wards, 129 branches).

The number of congregations declined during the first half of the 2000s largely due to the consolidation of branches as there were 317 congregations in 2001, 297 in 2002, and 290 in 2003 (192 wards, 98 branches). In 2005, there were 295 congregations and in 2007 there were 293 (212 wards, 81 branches). Slight congregational growth occurred in the late 2000s and in 2010 as by late 2010 there were 300 congregations.

The first two Ecuadoran LDS stakes were created in Guayaquil in 1978. The following year, a third stake was created in Quito. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of stakes increased from four to nine as new stakes were organized in Guayaquil Prosperina (1980), Quito Santa Ana (1981), Portoviejo (1981), Quevedo (1981), Otavalo (1981), and Guayaquil Garcia Moreno (1989). By early 1991, there were ten stakes and eight districts.[20]

Most of Ecuador's stakes were organized between 1991 and 1998 as the number of stakes increased from nine to 33. During this period, there were seven new stakes created in Guayaquil, four in Quito, two in Duran, two in Esmeraldas, and two in Quevedo. Additional stakes were created in Milagro, Machala, Santo Domingo, Esmeraldas, Ambato, Manta, Otavalo Imbabura, and Cuenca. By year-end 2000, there were 32 stakes and 12 districts.

Four new stakes were created in the 2000s, three of which were from districts. New stakes were organized in Libertad (2004), Babahoyo (2005), Guayaquil La Pradera (2007), and Los Chillos (2009). The Church has discontinued three stakes in Ecuador, all of which were consolidated with neighboring stakes in their respective cities. Discontinued stakes include the Esmeraldas Ecuador San Rafael (1999), Quito Ecuador Inaquito (2002), and Quevedo Ecuador San Camilo (2003) Stakes.

By year-end 2010, there were 34 stakes and nine districts. Districts functioning at this time were located in Ibarra (1975), Jipijapa (1988), Loja (1991), Riobamba (1992), Vinces (1992), Santa Rosa (1994), Ventanas (1994), Pedro Carbo (1999), and El Triunfo (2002).
Activity and Retention
4,900 members attended a regional conference held in Quito in 1991, a third of which were Otavalo Amerindians.[21] 10,446 listened to the groundbreaking ceremony for the Guayaquil Ecuador Temple via local radio in the Guayaquil Coliseum in 1996.[22] In 1997, President Hinckley spoke to 15,000 members in two meetings in Guayaquil and 8,350 members in a single meeting in Quito.[23] 108,000 attended the Guayaquil Ecuador Temple open house[24] and 11,700 members attended the dedicatory services.[25] 22,000 members from the Guayaquil area attended a regional conference with President Hinckley the day prior to the dedication of the temple.[26] The average number of members per congregation increased from 453 in 2000 to 641 in 2009. 6,287 were enrolled in seminary and institute during the 2008-2009 school year.

In 2010, approximately 100 members attended the Armenia Ward in the Los Chillos Ecuador Stake. In late 2010, there were 20 active members in the Catamayo Branch. One of the branches in Santa Rosa had 65 attending church in 2010. Branches generally have between 50 and 100 active members whereas wards tend to have 100 to 150 active members. Nationwide active membership is estimated at 40,000, or 20% of total membership.
Language Materials
Languages with LDS Scripture: Spanish, Quichua

All LDS scriptures and most Church materials are available in Spanish, including an LDS edition of the Bible complete with full LDS footnotes, bible dictionary, and topical guide. Quichua translations of LDS materials are limited to the Book of Mormon, a family guide book, Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, one Priesthood manual, one Relief Society manual, and Gospel Principles.
Meetinghouses
There were over 150 LDS meetinghouses in late 2010, nearly all of which were built by the Church.
Humanitarian and Development Work
Latter-day Saints have performed humanitarian outreach since the late 1980s. American LDS physicians collected books for a medical school based in Guayaquil in 1989.[27] Local media reported a local service project in which over 250 members from the Guayaquil area cleaned Guayaquil Park in 1994.[28] In 1997, the Church sponsored a citywide clean-up project in Quevado.[29] 300 attended a provident living and preparedness fair led by the Church in Quito in 2002.[30] Later that year, nineteen full-time missionaries provided over 700 hours of service as translators for American doctors and dentists providing medical care for the poor in rural areas.[31] Brigham Young University has worked for several years completing development projects in rural areas. In 2002, a water system was installed in the remote city of Cuambo[32] and micro-farming projects have occurred. Missionaries provided translating services again in 2004 for medical military personnel.[33]
Opportunities, Challenges and Prospects Religious Freedom
Latter-day Saints face no governmental or societal restrictions and proselyte, worship, and assemble freely. Foreign full-time missionaries report no major difficulty obtaining visas. Regional rivalries, illicit drug trafficking, and corruption do not appear to have significantly affected LDS mission outreach potential.
Cultural Issues
Low rates of regular religious participation among Catholics has created challenges for LDS missionaries when finding, teaching, baptizing, and reactivating investigators, recent converts, and inactive members with a Catholic background. There has been little success eliciting long-term regular church attendance among Ecuadorans as LDS missionaries have rushed most into baptism with little pre-baptismal and post-baptismal teaching that specifically rectifies low church attendance trends prevalent among the general population. Low alcohol and cigarette consumption rates complement LDS teachings and have likely contributed to past church growth successes. Cultural customs and practices in some regions and among some ethnic groups has improved receptivity to the LDS Church, such as among the Otavalo in northern Ecuador. Some Otavalo customs and traditions are aligned with LDS teachings and have similarities with stories found in the Book of Mormon.[34] The Otavalo Amerindians have demonstrated affinity for the Church and full-time missionaries report that the two stakes in Otavalo are highly self-sufficient. High receptivity in this region was noted as early as 1965 when the Church was first established in Ecuador.[35]

Strong growth among some Protestant churches in recent years indicates that the population is overall receptive to nontraditional Christian denominations and that the cultural characteristics of Ecuador are favorable for church growth as long as mission outreach is tailored to meet local needs. Regional rivalries can create challenges assimilating Ecuadorans from differing regions into the same LDS congregations and communities.
National Outreach
58% of the national population resides in a city of over 15,000 inhabitants with an LDS mission outreach center. Outreach occurs in some rural areas, which may increase the percentage of Ecuadorans reached by LDS missionary efforts to 65%. 35 of the 42 cities between 20,000 and 100,000 inhabitants have an LDS congregation. 1.6% of the national population resides in unreached cities with populations greater than 20,000 which include Nueva Loja, Huaquillas, La Maná, Naranjal, Pedernales, Calceta, and Macas. Distance from mission headquarters, remote location, and small populations has contributed to the lack of LDS outreach in these cities. Dependent branches or groups may function in some of these locations.

315,000 reside in the two administrative provinces without LDS mission outreach, Morona Santiago and Sucumbios, which account for two percent of the national population. Eight provinces have only one LDS congregation and include Bolivar, Carchi, Cotopaxi, Galapagos, Napo, Orellana, Pastaza, and Zamora-Chinchipe. The provinces with only one LDS mission outreach center account for 8.5% of the national population. Cotopaxi is the province with the largest population with only one LDS congregation (421,900 inhabitants).

During the 2000s, the Church established only a few new mission outreach centers in previously unreached areas, such as in Puerto Francisco de Orellana. The consolidation of dozens of congregations during this period has reduced the scope of mission outreach in many urban areas. Administrative challenges and dependence of full-time missionaries for many congregations to operate has prevented the opening of additional mission outreach centers.

Most urban areas receive a high level of LDS mission outreach achieved by the operation of multiple mission outreach centers, but most rural areas remain unreached and have no nearby mission outreach centers. Many Ecuadoran Latter-day Saints likely reside in these areas but are not active in the Church. The creation of dependent branches and groups may facilitate expansion of national outreach and increase member activity rates in the more populated rural areas. Holding cottages meetings in these areas allow for sporadic mission outreach to occur without assigning disproportionate numbers of full-time missionaries to remote, sparsely populated locations and presents opportunity to assess receptivity and mission outreach prospects over the medium-term.

The Church maintains a website for the South America Northeast Area at http://www.iglesiadejesucristo.org.co/. The website offers Spanish information regarding church doctrines, news, temples, and missionary contact information. Use of the website by local members and missionaries can assist proselytizing efforts both in reached and unreached areas.
Member Activity and Convert Retention
Membership growth rates have widely varied by location, but low convert retention rates have been consistent throughout Ecuador. Low member activity rates as indicated by few LDS congregations for large numbers of Latter-day Saints on paper have been prevalent for decades. In 1988, Cuenca experienced some of the slowest growth and had two LDS congregations for 800 members in the area.[36] There were just three branches part of the Esmeraldas Ecuador District when it was organized in 1988 yet there were 1,500 Latter-day Saints.[37] The average number of members per congregation increased by nearly 200 during the 2000s as few new congregations were organized and dozens of formerly-operating congregations were consolidated due to inadequate numbers of active priesthood holders and low member activity and participation rates overall. The discontinuation of three stakes between 1999 and 2003 further illustrates challenges retaining new converts, maintaining member activity rates, and developing sustainable local leadership. Culturally low religious activity rates in the general population and quick-baptize tactics by full-time missionaries practiced for several decades appear to be primary causes of poor LDS member activity and convert retention today. There have been inconsistent improvements addressing these issues through the missionary guide Preach My Gospel as the standards for baptism in the guide do not appear to be consistently implemented nationwide.

A recent success improving member activity and covert retention is highlighted in the creation of the Los Chillos Ecuador Stake from the San Rafael Ecuador District in 2009, in which each of the six original branches became wards. Within a year of the creation of the stake, a seventh ward was organized; an unusually short amount of time for an additional congregation to be organized for Latin American stakes created from districts. Significant nationwide improvements in member activity have yet to occur as indicated by no increase in seminary and institute enrollment during the late 2000s.
Ethnic Issues and Integration
Ecuador overall experiences few ethnic integration challenges as most are Amerindian-Spanish mixed mestizos. Language barriers between Amerindians and mestizo and white Ecuadorans are the most likely obstacle to be encountered by the Church.
Language Issues
Some LDS scriptures and church materials are translated into the native languages of 99% of the population. Amerindian languages without LDS materials at present appear unlikely to have LDS materials translated for the foreseeable future due to few speakers of these languages among Church members, the lack of mission outreach in areas where these languages are spoken, and bilingualism among many in Spanish. There have been challenges integrating Amerindians that do not speak Spanish into Spanish-speaking mestizo congregations and Spanish-speaking mestizos into Quichua-speaking congregations. These challenges have been primarily encountered in the Otavalo and Quito areas. The creation of language-specific congregations in northern Ecuador may improve member activity and convert retention rates in these areas.
Missionary Service
Local members regularly serve full-time missions and Ecuador appears close to becoming self-sufficient in its full-time missionary force. In mid-1997, there were approximately 670 missionaries serving in Ecuador.[38] In late 2010, there were likely between 500 and 600 missionaries assigned. Obstacles preventing greater numbers of members completing full-time missions include low member activity rates, a lack of youth-oriented missionary preparation programs, and undeveloped local priesthood leadership in many areas.
Leadership
Ecuador possesses developed priesthood leadership in appreciable numbers in Guayaquil and Quito, but other areas often report inadequate numbers of active P\priesthood leaders to allow the creation of additional congregations. Overreliance on full-time missionaries in many of these locations for administrative and local member duties is a major concern for development of greater self-sufficiency. A lack of active priesthood holders is the primary obstacle preventing several of Ecuador's districts from becoming stakes. Ecuador was one of the few Latin American countries that as of 2010 had never had a local member serve as a temple president.

Several local members have served in regional and international church leadership positions as mission presidents, regional representatives, and area seventies. Carl B. Pratt from Quito was called as the Spain Seville Mission president in 1988.[39] In 1989, Walter Fermin Gonzalez from Quito was called as a mission president.[40] In 1996, B. Renato Maldonado E. from Quito was called as the Ecuador Guayaquil North Mission president.[41] In 2003, Jorge Fermin Betancourth from Guayaquil was called to preside over the Uruguay Montevideo Mission and Jose Vicente Larrea from Guayaquil was called to preside over the Colombia Bogota North Mission.[42] In 2005, Jose Felix Lara from Quevedo was called to preside over the Ecuador Quito Mission.[43] In 2006, Francisco Washington Fierro Altamirano from Quito was called as a mission president[44] and Sofocles Euripides Moran from Guayaquil was called to preside over the Chile Santiago East Mission.[45] In 2010, Jorge Gonzalo Montoya from Quito was called to preside over the Venezuela Valencia Mission[46] and Fernando Enrique Calderon from Quito was called to preside over the Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission.[47]

In 1991, Cesar Hugo Cacuango from Quito was called as a regional representative.[48] In 1993, Jorge Alberto Uboldi from Quito[49] and Walter F. Gonzalez from Quito were called as regional representatives.[50] In 1995, Walter F. Gonzalez and Carl B. Pratt were called as area seventies.[51] In 1997, Carl B. Pratt was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy.[52] In 2002, B. Renato Maldonado was called as an Area Authority Seventy.[53] In 2005, Fernando E. Calderon from Quito was called as an Area Seventy.[54]
Temple
Ecuador pertains to the Guayaquil Ecuador Temple district. Local members regularly held stake temple trips to Peru following the dedication of the Lima Peru temple in 1986. Temple trips during this period generally lasted over a week as it was a three-day journey by bus one way.[55] The fourteen year gap between the announcement of the Guayaquil Ecuador Temple in 1982 and groundbreaking in 1996 was due to a variety of challenges, including obtaining needed government approvals.[56] At present, the temple appears to be moderately attended by members in the district. In 2010, six endowment sessions were scheduled on Tuesdays through Fridays and sessions on Saturdays occurred hourly from 8 AM to 2 PM. Prospects for the construction of additional temples in Ecuador will become more favorable once temple attendance increases and the number of active priesthood holders increases. Only Quito appears to be a possible future temple site over the medium term.
Comparative Growth
The LDS Church in Ecuador followed membership, congregational, and national outreach growth trends comparable to several other western South American nations, such as Colombia and Bolivia. Ecuador had the ninth largest number of LDS members and eleventh most stakes in the world in 2010. The ratio of the general population to LDS missions in Ecuador is 4.9 million people per mission, close to the average of South America of approximately six million per mission. Ecuador ranks seventh among countries with the largest number of members per congregation and member activity rates appear representative for the region. In late 2010, Ecuador was the country with the most Latter-day Saints with only one temple operating, announced, or under construction. Membership growth rates in Ecuador during the 2000s have compared to growth rates in Colombia during this period and have ranked average for the region. The percentage of Latter-day Saints in the Ecuadoran population ranks average among South American nations.

Many missionary-minded Christian groups report rapid church growth in Ecuador and some have outpaced LDS Church growth in terms of the number of active members, the number of congregations operating, and current membership growth rates. Seventh Day Adventists achieved moderate levels of membership and congregational growth in the 2000s as did Jehovah's Witnesses. Evangelicals appear to be the most successful nontraditional Christian group, largely due to their effectiveness in member-missionary work. Latter-day Saints exhibit some of the lowest convert retention rates among the major non-Catholic Christian churches.
Future Prospects
The population remains receptive to Latter-day Saint teachings and full-time missionaries, but inconsistent mission practices regarding the teaching and baptizing of new converts have compromised member activity and convert retention rates for decades. Many nominal Catholics that have converted to the LDS Church have become nominal Latter-day Saints or no longer identify as Latter-day Saints today. Future long-term growth will depend on increasing the number of active priesthood holders, implementing culturally-sensitive proselytism approaches, decreasing the dependence of smaller congregations on full-time missionaries for administrative functions, establishing additional mission outreach centers, and implementing convert baptism standards that require consistent church attendance prior to baptism and supply adequate pre-baptismal and post-baptismal teaching. The creation of additional stakes appears most likely over the short and medium terms in Guayaquil, Quito, and other large cities. Achieving commensurate membership and congregational growth will indicate progress toward resolving member activity and convert retention issues.

[1] "Background Note: Ecuador," Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, 24 May 2010. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35761.htm

[2] "Culture of Ecuador," Wikipedia.org, retrieved 28 December 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Ecuador

[3] "Ecuador," International Religious Freedom Report 2010, 17 November 2010. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010/148753.htm

[4] "Ecuador," International Religious Freedom Report 2010, 17 November 2010. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010/148753.htm

[5] Wells, Elayne. "A land of prophecy: in the Andes, 'Lehi's children grow strong in gospel," LDS Church News, 17 February 1990. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19993/A-land-of-prophecy--in-the-Andes-Lehis-children-grow-strong-in-gospel.html

[6] "South America missions to number 48 Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela to gain 5 new missions," LDS Church News, 16 March 1991. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/20940/South-America-missions-to-number-48-Brazil-Ecuador-Venezuela-to-gain-5-new-missions.html

[7] "Languages of the Book of Mormon," LDS Church News, 2 January 1988. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/18109/Languages-of-the-Book-of-Mormon.html

[8] Wells, Elayne. "A land of prophecy: in the Andes, 'Lehi's children grow strong in gospel," LDS Church News, 17 February 1990. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19993/A-land-of-prophecy--in-the-Andes-Lehis-children-grow-strong-in-gospel.html

[9] "'Wisely, cautiously,' missionary work proceeds in Bolivia," LDS Church News, 24 June 1989. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19002/Wisely-cautiously-missionary-work-proceeds-in-Bolivia.html

[10] "South America missions to number 48 Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela to gain 5 new missions," LDS Church News, 16 March 1991. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/20940/South-America-missions-to-number-48-Brazil-Ecuador-Venezuela-to-gain-5-new-missions.html

[11] "From around the world," LDS Church News, 29 February 1992. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/22137/From-around-the-world.html

[12] "New stake presidencies," LDS Church News, 18 July 1992. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/22204/New-stake-presidencies.html

[13] "New stake presidencies," LDS Church News, 4 October 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/29785/New-stake-presidencies.html

[14] "Excitement for temple in Ecuador grows," LDS Church News, 1 February 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/28885/Excitement-for-temple-in-Ecuador-grows.html

[15] "Ecuador receives first visit from a president of Church," LDS Church News, 23 August 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/29571/Ecuador-receives-first-visit-from-a-president-of-Church.html

[16] "One member killed during Ecuador earthquakes," LDS Church News, 29 August 1998. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/29785/New-stake-presidencies.html

[17] "100,00 expected at open house of Guayaquil Ecuador Temple," LDS Church News, 10 July 1999. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/36032/100000-expected-at-open-house-of-Guayaquil-Ecuador-Temple.html

[18] "Floods damage members' homes," LDS Church News, 24 March 2001. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/39515/Floods-damage-members-homes.html

[19] "South America missions to number 48 Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela to gain 5 new missions," LDS Church News, 16 March 1991. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/20940/South-America-missions-to-number-48-Brazil-Ecuador-Venezuela-to-gain-5-new-missions.html

[20] "South America missions to number 48 Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela to gain 5 new missions," LDS Church News, 16 March 1991. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/20940/South-America-missions-to-number-48-Brazil-Ecuador-Venezuela-to-gain-5-new-missions.html

[21] "From around the world," LDS Church News, 9 November 1991. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/21235/From-around-the-world.html

[22] "Amid tears, Ecuador temple ground broken," LDS Church News, 17 August 1996. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/28163/Amid-tears-Ecuador-temple-ground-broken.html

[23] "Rapid pace across South America," LDS Church News, 23 August 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/29572/Rapid-pace-across-South-America.html

[24] "Facts and features: Guayaquil Ecuador Temple," LDS Church News, 7 August 1999. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/36178/Facts-and-features-Guayaquil-Ecuador-Temple.html

[25] Hart, John L. "Guayaquil Ecuador Temple dedication: 'A wondrous day' for members," LDS Church News, 7 August 1999. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/36161/Guayaquil-Ecuador-Temple-dedication-A-wondrous-day-for-members.html

[26] "'This is a day of history'," LDS Church News, 7 August 1999. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/36160/This-is-a-day-of-history.html

[27] "LDS physicians plan 'day of service'," LDS Church News, 25 March 1989. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/18568/LDS-physicians-plan-day-of-service.html

[28] "From around the world," LDS Church News, 12 November 1994. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/24872/From-around-the-world.html

[29] "From around the world," LDS Church News, 22 February 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/29426/From-around-the-world.html

[30] "300 attend preparedness fair," LDS Church News, 1 June 2002. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/41905/300-attend-preparedness-fair.html

[31] Swensen, Jason. "Missionaries' skills enlisted in Ecuador," LDS Church News, 3 August 2002. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/42218/Missionaries-skills-enlisted-in-Ecuador.html

[32] Weaver, Sarah Jane. "Water to drink," LDS Church News, 10 August 2002. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/42251/Water-to-drink.html

[33] "Missionaries translating," LDS Church News, 4 September 2004. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/46086/Missionaries-translating.html

[34] Wells, Elayne. "A land of prophecy: in the Andes, 'Lehi's children grow strong in gospel," LDS Church News, 17 February 1990. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19993/A-land-of-prophecy--in-the-Andes-Lehis-children-grow-strong-in-gospel.html

[35] Wells, Elayne. "A land of prophecy: in the Andes, 'Lehi's children grow strong in gospel," LDS Church News, 17 February 1990. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19993/A-land-of-prophecy--in-the-Andes-Lehis-children-grow-strong-in-gospel.html

[36] "From around the world," LDS Church News, 30 January 1988. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/17635/From-around-the-world.html

[37] "From around the world," LDS Church News, 20 February 1988. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/17978/From-around-the-world.html

[38] "Rapid pace across South America," LDS Church News, 23 August 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/29572/Rapid-pace-across-South-America.html

[39] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 26 March 1988. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/18212/New-mission-presidents.html

[40] "The callings of six new mission presidents," LDS Church News, 28 January 1989. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19220/The-callings-of-six-new-mission-presidents.html

[41] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 1 June 1996. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/27591/New-mission-presidents.html

[42] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 15 March 2003. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/43361/New-mission-presidents.html

[43] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 26 March 2005. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/47044/New-mission-presidents.html

[44] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 4 February 2006. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/48469/New-mission-presidents.html

[45] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 15 April 2006. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/48814/New-mission-presidents.html

[46] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 13 February 2010. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58779/New-mission-presidents.html

[47] "New mission presidents," LDS Church News, 13 March 2010. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58992/New-mission-presidents.html

[48] "New regional representatives," LDS Church News, 16 February 1991. Wells, Elayne. "A land of prophecy: in the Andes, 'Lehi's children grow strong in gospel," LDS Church News, 17 February 1990. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19993/A-land-of-prophecy--in-the-Andes-Lehis-children-grow-strong-in-gospel.html

[49] "New regional representatives," LDS Church News, 15 May 1993. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/23069/New-regional-representatives.html

[50] "New regional representatives," LDS Church News, 25 September 1993. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/23377/New-regional-representatives.html

[51] "Church names area authorities," LDS Church News, 5 August 1995. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/26627/Church-names-area-authorities.html

[52] "First Quorum of the Seventy: Four sustained; quorum total now reaches 47," LDS Church News, 12 April 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/29915/First-Quorum-of-the-Seventy--Four-sustained-quorum-total-now-reaches-47.html

[53] "30 Area Authority Seventies sustained," LDS Church News, 13 April 2002. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/41666/30-Area-Authority-Seventies-sustained.html

[54] "38 new Area Seventies called, 37 are released," LDS Church News, 9 April 2005. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/47147/38-new-Area-Seventies-called-37-are-released.html

[55] "In many countries, great efforts made to attend the temple," LDS Church News, 25 June 1994. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/24289/In-many-countries-great-efforts-made-to-attend-the-temple.html

[56] "Excitement for temple in Ecuador grows," LDS Church News, 1 February 1997. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/28885/Excitement-for-temple-in-Ecuador-grows.html

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International Resources for Latter-day Saints

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Area: 283,561 square km. Located on the Equator in northwestern South America, Ecuador borders Colombia, Peru, and the Pacific Ocean. The Galapagos Islands consists of 18 main islands offshore of the South American mainland and are under Ecuadoran administration. Dramatic shifts in terrain and climate characterize Ecuador proper.

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3 April 2016

11 May 2019 by Enrique R. Falabella

Groundbreaking Ceremony

Elder Enrique R. Falabella, South America Northwest Area President, presided at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Quito Ecuador Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday, May 11, 2019. Special guests in attendance included the Interior Minister, Dr. Maria Paula Romo, and several religious leaders. Elder Hugo Montoya, a counselor in the area presidency, spoke to the congregation of more than 800 people. "As members we support each other to serve the citizens of this country. The temple will be a refuge. We should not be distressed despite our problems," he said. "If we can be in a safe place, this place is the temple." ¹

Temple Rendering

The official rendering of the Quito Ecuador Temple was released on March 7, 2019, in conjunction with the groundbreaking announcement.

Temple Site

The Quito Ecuador Temple will be constructed east of Quito in the beautiful suburb of Cumbayá at the junction of Ruta Viva and Escalón Lumbisí.

Temple Announcement

On April 3, 2016, during the Sunday morning session of the 186th Annual General Conference, President Thomas S. Monson announced that Ecuador's second temple would be constructed in the capital city of Quito. ²

Nestled in a long, narrow valley high in the Andes mountains, Quito is known for being one of the highest capital cities in the world at 9,350 feet above sea level. There are seven operating stakes in this city of 2.5 million people, which is the second most populous city in Ecuador after Guayaquil, where the nation's first temple was constructed. Prior to the announcement of Quito's temple, Ecuador was the country with the highest number of members with only one temple. The Saints of Quito currently travel 270 miles to reach the Guayaquil Ecuador Temple. Saints in the Imbabura region, north of Quito, generally arrange 13-hour overnight bus trips to attend the temple, participating in two endowments sessions and a lunch before reboarding the bus and returning home.

Temple Facts

The Quito Ecuador Temple will be the second temple built in Ecuador.

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3 April 2016 11 May 2019 by Enrique R. Falabella Groundbreaking Ceremony Elder Enrique R. Falabella, South America Northwest Area President, presided at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Quito Ecuador Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday, May 11, 2019.

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Guatemala is ''captured'' by corruption, says a report the UN Commission compiled after a 12 years-long presence in the country that ends soon since President Jimmy Morales has refused to extend its mandate.

The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) published a report on Wednesday, claiming there was a ''mafia coalition'' among government members and private individuals who are "willing to sacrifice Guatemala's present and future to guarantee impunity and preserve the status quo."

The "Legacy of Justice in Guatemala'' report describes the actions the body has undertaken to help legal reforms and recommend public policies.

Backed by the Public Ministry between 2008 and 2019 more than 1,540 people have been probed in CICIG cases. Thanks to these joint investigations, 660 people and more than 120 high-impact cases were prosecuted.

Investigations further revealed more than 70 highly complex criminal structures with significant economic, political and media power. Some of these people are former presidents, former vice-president, ministers, deputies, drug traffickers and mayors, the report says.

It also states that a number of companies built their empires thanks to monopolies, using their political ties to protect themselves.

Commissioner Iván Velásquez Gómez pointed out that investigations exposed the corruption in the health system, customs, penitentiary system, and in the executive, legislative and judicial bodies, but added that he believes in the ability of Guatemalans to overcome these times of adversity.

Velásquez was barred from entering Guatemala last year, after the body opened an investigation on President Morales, some of his family members and associates.

"The CICIG has put at risk the security of the nation, public order, governance, respect for human rights, but above all the sovereignty of the state of Guatemala, " Morales said.

He also accused the CICIG of illegal actions and of violating human rights and refused to extend the contract with the body. Critics saw that as the President's method to protect himself and those close to him.

The United Nations established the CICIG after the government of Guatemala asked for assistance. As an independent body, CICIG investigated illegal security groups and criminal groups believed to have infiltrated state institutions, fostering impunity and undermining democratic gains in Guatemala since the end of the country's armed conflict in the 1990s.

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Report: Guatemala ''Captured'' by Corruption

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Guatemala is ''captured'' by corruption, says a report the UN Commission compiled after a 12 years-long presence in the country that ends soon since President Jimmy Morales has refused to extend its mandate.

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Guatemala is the cornerstone of President Donald Trump's "safe third country" agreement - an effort to stem migration to the U.S. by first requiring people to claim asylum in Guatemala before applying to the United States.

But experts say that the most effective tool in reducing migration from Latin America is strengthening the rule of law and human rights in the region through anti-corruption commissions like the one that will end in Guatemala on Sept. 3.

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (widely known by its Spanish acronym, CICIG) was created in 2006 to help prosecutors investigate and dismantle criminal organizations that had weakened and manipulated Guatemala's judicial and political systems.

"The CICIG has been a very successful law initiative. And for the U.S., a good bang for its buck," said Adriana Beltrán, director of citizen security for the Washington-based advocacy and research organization WOLA.

Beltrán said the U.S. has invested millions since Guatemala's peace accord in 1996," and the return was minimal."

"You still had extremely high levels of impunity, and no real access to justice," she said. "But within the last 10 years, you can point to specific progress that has had an impact on corruption and migration."

Backed by the United Nations and funded by different countries - the U.S. gave $44.5 million from 2007 to 2017 - CICIG helped prosecutors take on military death squads, rogue police officers, drug cartels and even two presidents - Alfonso Portillo was convicted on money laundering charges in 2014, and Otto Pérez Molina was jailed in 2015 for a corruption scandal involving customs agents, importers and officials who lowered import taxes in exchange for fees.

More recently, CICIG prosecutors investigated Guatemala's outgoing president Jimmy Morales - who signed Trump's safe third country agreement - for accepting roughly $1 million in campaign donations. And in retaliation, Morales refused to renew the commission's agreement, which expires next week.

Now, Beltrán says that if the CICIG comes to an end, criminal organizations will try to regain control of the Guatemalan government. And this will have many repercussions on security conditions and the economy, which will ultimately result in more waves of undocumented migration to the United States.

"There is a link between corruption and migration," Beltrán told NBC News. "When you talk about corruption and Guatemala, we're not talking about a few bad apples or one administration. It's a machinery that has been created to favor a certain few at the expense of the majority. And the most affected tend to be marginalized communities living in areas where the state is barely present."

Security experts say that the international commission ushered a deep cultural change in the Central American country - a poll during the 2019 presidential campaign said that the majority of Guatemalan voters supported the anti-corruption mission of the CICIG over their government and politicians.

But after the conservative Alejandro Giammattei won Guatemala's presidency on Aug. 11, experts say that it signals a wider political shift in the region that favors "mano dura" (hard-line) politics over the CICIG's mission to strengthen the rule of law and democratic institutions. Giammattei, a former prison director, has already proposed bringing back the death penalty.

"Since President Trump took office, the United States has backed away from the strong support that it traditionally offered human rights and justice initiatives in Guatemala and the Americas," said Kate Doyle, a senior analyst for the National Security Archive who uses declassified U.S. records on Guatemala and Latin America to uncover hidden foreign policy stories. "That is a signal that says that this is no longer a priority. And it's being heard and received by conservative and populist governments all over the Americas."

In May 2018, Senate Republicans suspended annual CICIG funding ($6 million) from the U.S. government for several months. And in September 2018, the U.S. refused to back a joint statement issued by CICIG donor countries supporting the commission's anti-corruption work.

Before this political shift, the CICIG had become a model for neighboring countries in the region - including Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico - that sought to strengthen their governments against corruption.

"Civil society organizations, justice reform organizations and good government organizations in different Central American countries have been putting their heads together to see whether a CICIG-like commission is a good model to strengthen their national justice systems and prosecutorial capacity," Doyle told NBC News.

Now, Doyle believes that right wing populism is driving governments away from justice reform initiatives and human rights work that had become a cornerstone of foreign policy in the region after the Cold War ended.

Experts also see this shifting political landscape as undermining crucial U.S. cooperation.

"The fascinating thing about the CICIG is that it had been reviving bipartisan support by Congress and with successive administrations," Beltrán said. "I think the Bush administration at the time saw real value in an international commission of that nature to go after criminal groups that were engaged in all kinds of illicit activities."
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U.S. will lose out as Guatemala shuts anti-corruption commission, say experts

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Guatemala is the cornerstone of President Donald Trump's "safe third country" agreement - an effort to stem migration to the U.S. by first requiring people to claim asylum in Guatemala before applying to the United States.

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Even so, not all hope is lost. Guatemalan president Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo, who served from 1986 to 1991, helped get the government more invested in environmental matters. He established the massive Maya Biosphere Reserve and also pushed environmental legislation through congress. Other Guatemalan environmental activists have worked hard to bring better protection to Guatemala, and some have even lost their lives doing so - indeed, when you're going up against powerful agricultural groups, cattle ranchers, and drug cartels, environmentalism can be downright dangerous. Though the country has a long way to go, slowly but surely, serious attention is being given to the creation and protection of nature reserves.
Deforestation
At one point in time, most of Guatemala was covered in forests. In fact, the Mayan-Toltec name for Guatemala means "land of the trees" - the nation's geography and climate made that possible, but to look at the landscape, one would never know that now. Ever since Mayan times, the forests have been cut down and used for other purposes. In 2001, 40 percent of the country was still forested; by 2005, it was down to 37 percent; in 2011, it was 33.7 percent. Indeed, between 1990 and 2010 Guatemala lost an average of 134,795 acres (54,550 ha), or 1.15 percent, of its forests per year.

The Caribbean lowlands have seen forests turned into banana plantations, while the Pacific slope forests have given way to coffee and sugarcane plantations. The Guatemalan highlands have been cultivated since Mayan times.

Much of this loss has occurred in Petén, where government incentives in response to a growing population have helped contribute to land grabs in Petén's northern section. Indeed, the battle over Guatemala's forests is being most actively waged in this department. The southern and central sections are almost completely deforested, which has led to declines in annual rainfall and longer/warmer dry seasons. The northern third of Petén is protected under the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Even so, the pressures continue to rise to develop this reserve, and illegal logging and land grabs still occur.

Forests are often cut down to make way for subsistence farming in a practice known as slash-and-burn agriculture. In this practice, forests are chopped down and burned; the nutrient-rich ash and soil allows crops to grow easily, but only for a few years. When the soil becomes unproductive, new sections of the forest must be cut down and turned into farmland. The cycle continues and each year more forests become wasteland.

One hopes that present-day Guatemalans will learn from their Mayan ancestors, who may have been pushed to the brink of extinction by dwindling resources caused by massive deforestation. It's thought that one of the reasons for the collapse of the Classic Maya was a drought caused by deforestation in the tropical lowlands. This drought may have led to warfare among Mayan city-states eager to claim dwindling resources.
Water Resources and Air Quality
According to UN figures, about a quarter of Guatemalans lack access to safe drinking water. In rural areas, it's closer to 50 percent. Many cities do have sewer systems, but wastewater treatment is almost nonexistent - the sewage is often dumped into lakes, rivers, and oceans. Fertilizers used in various farming operations also pollute the water systems. All of this leads to illness among the Guatemalan population.

Guatemala City is big and the air isn't always great. Much of this is due to old school buses that form the backbone of the city's transportation network. These buses use diesel and emit big black fumes. Improvements are, however, in the works to replace older buses with newer vehicles and cut down on the auto exhaust. Industrial pollution and garbage burning can also add to the city's haze. During the rainy season, precipitation helps clear the atmosphere of particulates each afternoon.

Air quality in other parts of the country can be good, especially in the highlands. However, volcanic eruptions and agricultural burning can make the atmosphere hazy in rural areas as well.

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Guatemala Environmental Issues & Resource Extraction

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Even so, not all hope is lost. Guatemalan president Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo, who served from 1986 to 1991, helped get the government more invested in environmental matters. He established the massive Maya Biosphere Reserve and also pushed environmental legislation through congress.

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This article was created in partnership with the National Geographic Society.

Eduardo Méndez López lifts his gaze to the sky, hoping to see clouds laden with rain.

After months of subsisting almost exclusively on plain corn tortillas and salt, his eyes and cheeks appear sunken in, his skin stretched thin over bone. The majority of his neighbors look the same.

It's the height of rainy season in Guatemala, but in the village of Conacaste, Chiquimula, the rains came months too late, then stopped altogether. Méndez López's crops shriveled and died before producing a single ear of corn. Now, with a dwindling supply of food, and no source of income, he's wondering how he'll be able to feed his six young children.

"This is the worst drought we've ever had," says Méndez López, toeing the parched earth with the tip of his boot. "We've lost absolutely everything. If things don't improve, we'll be forced to migrate somewhere else. We can't go on like this."

Guatemala is consistently listed among the world's 10 most vulnerable nations to the effects of climate change. Increasingly erratic climate patterns have produced year after year of failed harvests and dwindling work opportunities across the country, forcing more and more people like Méndez López to consider migration in a last-ditch effort to escape skyrocketing levels of food insecurity and poverty.

During the past decade, an average of 24 million people each year were displaced by weather events around the world, and although it's unclear how many of those displacements can be attributed to human-caused climate change, experts expect this number to continue to rise.

Increasingly, those displaced seek to relocate in other countries as "climate change refugees," but there's a problem: the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defines the rights of displaced people, provides a list of things people must be fleeing from in order to be granted asylum or refuge. Climate change isn't on the list.

Data from Customs and Border Patrol show a massive increase in the number of Guatemalan migrants, particularly families and unaccompanied minors, intercepted at the U.S. border starting in 2014. It's not a coincidence that the leap coincides with the onset of severe El Niño-related drought conditions in Central America's Dry Corridor, which stretches through Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Seeking to understand the upward trend in emigration from this region, a major inter-agency study led by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) interviewed families from key districts in the Dry Corridor about the pressures that are forcing them to leave. The main "push factor" identified was not violence, but drought and its consequences: no food, no money, and no work.

Their findings suggest a clear relation between climate variability, food insecurity, and migration, and provide a frightening window into what's to come as we begin to see the real-world effects of climate change around the world.

To Diego Recalde, director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Guatemala, the current trend of mass migration in response to food insecurity and drought is a clear indication that the country has been barreling towards a climate change-induced crisis for some time.

Adverse climate conditions in Guatemala affect food security by reducing agricultural production in both commercial as well as subsistence farming, limiting the agricultural work opportunities that make up a significant portion of the national economy as well. Rising poverty rates and plunging social indicators paint a bleak outlook for the country, which has the fourth-highest level of chronic malnutrition in the world, and the highest in Latin America. According to the World Food Programme, nearly 50 percent of children under five years old are considered chronically malnourished in Guatemala, a measure that peaks to 90 percent or higher in many rural areas.

For subsistence farmers like Méndez López who rely on rainfall to produce the food they eat, it only takes a few months of erratic climate patterns to limit or completely impair their ability to put food on their families' tables. With increases in the frequency and severity of droughts, Recalde worries that for the most vulnerable sectors of the population, the worst is yet to come.

"This is a national disaster," he says. "There should be red flags going off all over the place."

Scientists attribute the unusually severe droughts starting in 2014 that have sped up the exodus of families heading north to effects from El Niño, part of a natural climate cycle known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which causes swings between cooler and wetter, and hotter and drier periods around the globe.

This type of natural climate variability has affected Guatemala and other Central American countries for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, even playing a role in the mega-droughts that accompanied the collapse of the ancient Mayan civilization.

"Climate has always had a very strong variability here," explains Edwin Castellanos, director of the Center for the Study of the Environment and Biodiversity at the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala. "The problem now is that El Niño and La Niña have become both stronger, more intense, but also more erratic."

Climate change to blame?

While it may seem as if climate change is driving these wide swings in weather, it's important to make a distinction between periods of climate variability, and the long-term shifts of climate change. The latter quickly becomes a matter of politics, international negotiations, and claims for loss and damages under the Paris Agreement.

While scientists know that El Niño contributes to increases in global temperatures, it is still unclear whether human-induced climate change is causing El Niño events to intensify and occur more frequently.

"By definition, climate change should usually be modeled in 50-year terms. But what the models are showing should be happening in 2050 is already happening now," says Castellanos, referring to alterations in rainfall patterns and aridity levels across Guatemala. "So the question is, is this variability higher than usual?"

A lack of historical meteorological data makes demonstrating a clear connection between human-induced climate change and increased climate variability difficult. Nevertheless, Castellanos, who is among Guatemala's leading experts on climate change, finds it hard to ignore the transformations he's experienced first-hand throughout his life.

"We still have some ways to go before we can conclude scientifically that what we're seeing now is outside the normal. But if you go out to the field and ask anybody if this is normal, everybody says no."

Whether attributed to El Niño events or to global warming, what's happening in Guatemala paints a vivid picture of the vulnerabilities that are exposed when societies don't have the capacities to cope with and adapt to a changing climate.

Vulnerable economy, vulnerable villages

In previous years, families affected by a bad year's harvest would seek work as day laborers on commercial farms, making enough to purchase staples like corn and beans. But this year, there's no work to be found. Even well-established commercial agriculture ventures have been affected by this year's drought, foreshadowing the bigger problems that will arise as the climate-sensitive crops that make up the bulk of Guatemala's key agricultural exports (and domestic job market) suffer the effects of rising temperatures and increasingly frequent climate-related disasters.

Today, towards the end of yet another "rainy season" that brought no rain, many rural communities seem trapped in a dizzying vortex of catastrophe. Years of erratic weather, failed harvests, and a chronic lack of employment opportunities have slowly chipped away at the strategies Guatemalan families have used successfully to cope with one or two years of successive droughts and crop failures. But now, entire villages seem to be collapsing from the inside out as more and more communities become stranded, hours away from the nearest town, with no food, no work, and no way to seek help.

"There's no transportation. People have run out of money to pay the fare, so cars don't even come here anymore," says José René Súchite Ramos of El Potrerito, Chiquimula. "We want to leave but we can't."

Many describe the current situation as the most desperate they've ever faced. In the settlement of Plan de Jocote, Chiquimula, Gloria Díaz's crops didn't produce a single grain of corn.

"Here, 95 percent of us have been affected by droughts that started in 2014, but this year, we lost absolutely everything, even the seeds," Díaz says. "Now we're stuck with no way out. We can't plant the second harvest, and we've run out of the resources we had to be able to eat."

Like many others in her community, Díaz has taken to foraging the countryside for wild malanga roots in attempts to stave off starvation, but they've become scarce too. Without a reliable source of potable water, outbreaks of diarrhea and skin rashes have become increasingly common, especially among children.

In the neighboring department of El Progreso, Sister Edna Morales spends many days riding a donkey through the parched mountains surrounding the small town of San Agustín Acasaguastlán, looking for malnourished children whose families are too poor and weak to seek help. These days, the nutritional feeding center she runs remains at full capacity.

"These children have so many health problems that are compounded by severe, chronic malnutrition. Their hair is falling out, they're unable to walk," she says. "Living here, you hear about many cases of children dying from malnutrition. They don't even get reported to the news."

It's not just children who are suffering the consequences of severe food shortages and crushing poverty. In Chiquimula, Díaz displays a recent group photo of the community organization over which she presides, the Association of Progressive Women of Plan de Jocote. One by one, she points at women who have died, or are slowly dying, from preventable causes made untreatable by extreme poverty and malnutrition.

When subsistence farmers lose their harvests, they're forced to purchase the staples they typically grow-often at highly inflated prices-to feed their families. Without a source of income, this additional expense leaves many without the economic resources for other basic necessities such as medications or transportation to doctors.

As hunger pushes desperate parents to resort to extreme measures in order to feed their families, robberies and violent assaults have skyrocketed.

"People from our own community are starting to go out and rob people, because it's their only option," says Marco Antonio Vásquez, a community leader of the village of El Ingeniero in Chiquimula.

Many consider migration to be their last option, one that comes with tremendous risks to their personal security and unthinkable consequences if they're unable to complete the journey.

"A lot of people are leaving, many more than ever before," says Vásquez. "Towards the U.S. in search of a new future, taking their small children with them because they feel so pressured to risk it all."

Those with homes or small plots of land use them as collateral to pay human smugglers known as "coyotes" between $10,000 and $15,000 USD in exchange for three chances to cross the border into the U.S. But families from the poorest regions of the country are often forced to choose the option with the least guarantees and the highest risks-going alone, often with small children in tow.

In Guatemala City, two to three planes touch down at the Guatemalan Air Force Base every day, each one carrying around 150 Guatemalan citizens who have been deported or intercepted as they attempted to cross into the United States. Many were fleeing hunger and extreme poverty in their home country.

Ernesto, who asked his name to be changed, looked weary as he waited in line to claim the small bag containing belongings that had been taken from him when he was intercepted at the U.S. Border-his shoelaces, a battered cell phone, and a small bible. His family in Guatemala had put their home and livelihood on the line, hoping he could make it across to find work in the U.S., which would allow him to support his family back home. This was the second time he had been deported.

"I have one chance left. If I don't make it, we will really be in trouble."

This reporting was supported by the International Women's Media Foundation as part of its Adelante Latin American Reporting Initiative. Gena Steffens is a writer and photographer based in Colombia. She is currently working on a National Geographic Society storytelling grant.

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Changing climate forces desperate Guatemalans to migrate

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This article was created in partnership with the National Geographic Society. Eduardo Méndez López lifts his gaze to the sky, hoping to see clouds laden with rain. After months of subsisting almost exclusively on plain corn tortillas and salt, his eyes and cheeks appear sunken in, his skin stretched thin over bone.