The week in Latin America: Cattle vs. soybeans

Here are stories that made headlines this week in Latin America, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

Suit dismissed in Border Patrol shooting

A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit seeking damages for the family of a 15-year-old Ciudad Juarez boy who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent last year, the El Paso Times reports. The death of Sergio Hernandez Guereca occurred on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, and thus out of U.S. jurisdiction, the judge overseeing the suit ruled.

Here's our La Plaza report on the June 2010 incident, in which border agent Jesus Mesa Jr. shot at a group of teens who were allegedly throwing rocks at him. Hernandez's family plans to appeal the dismissal of the case.

Trading cattle for soybeans in Argentina

Special correspondent Chris Kraul tells us about a cattle rancher in Argentina -- a nation synonymous with delicious beef -- and found that the global commodities boom is making soybean production far more lucrative for Argentina's famed gauchos.

The shift is challenging traditions in the Pampas, the wide plains that have inspired Argentine artists and writers for generations. "The Pampas are no longer the open plains with a gaucho sipping mate in the shade," one analyst told Kraul. "Now it's a green industry, motorizing the entire economy."

Peru suspends coca eradiction program

The government of Peru's recently sworn-in President Ollanta Humala has suspended a coca eradiction program, surprising U.S. envoys who seek to help countries in the region scale back the production of cocaine.

Peru says the program, which the U.S. has backed with $10 million this year, is under evaluation as the new president reviews its eradication efforts overall. The Andean nation is the second-largest producer of coca, the base material for cocaine, after Colombia.

Dominican hotel owner suspected in journalist slaying

Authorities in the Dominican Republic are searching for a hotel owner suspected of ordering the killing of a muckracking journalist who published alleged links between organized crime and anti-trafficking prosecutors. Read more in La Plaza.

-- Daniel Hernandez

Photo: Cattle rancher Mario Caceres with his soybean crops in Argentina. Credit: Andres D'Alessandro / For The Times

Hotel owner sought in Dominican journalist killing

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have alleged that a hotel owner is a key conspirator behind a plan to kidnap and assassinate a prominent muckraking journalist who made allegations of links among drug traffickers, antidrug prosecutors and business leaders in the small Caribbean nation.

Jose Silvestre, publisher of the Voice of Truth weekly newspaper and host of a radio program of the same name (link in Spanish), was shot to death while four suspects attempted to kidnap him on Aug. 2 in the city of La Romana. His body was found later on a roadside east of Santo Domingo. 

Authorities suspect businessman and resort owner Matias Avelino Castro ordered Silvestre's murder and remained at large. Avelino wanted Silvestre dead after a July report in the Voice of Truth referred to the alleged criminal links of several of the businessman's associates, Dominican prosecutors said in a statement (link in Spanish). Four arrests have been made in the case, Dominican Today reported.

The Dominican Republic is becoming a key drug-trafficking route from South and Central America into the United States.

Avelino uses several aliases including Joaquin Almeida, Franklin Linaira and "Daniel." News outlets in the Dominican Republic identify him as a leader in a group known as the Samana cartel, named for the Samana peninsula where his Las Galeras resort is located (link in Spanish). That hotel's website presents it as a luxurious tropical getaway and has information in five European languages.

Silvestre was jailed for six days this year on libel charges after he published allegations linking a local antidrug prosecutor to narcotics trafficking. The journalist sometimes made criminal allegations against officials and others without sourcing the claims, the Associated Press said. Prosecutors also said they have testimony from three people who claim Silvestre was paid to publish some of his allegations.

Nonetheless, the journalist's killing has received attention from Amnesty International and other rights groups. According to a sibling, shots were fired at Silvestre's house in May, Amnesty International reported, and because of the threats against the journalist, the Dominican Republic's national press workers union had requested police protection for Silvestre, which was never granted.

-- Daniel Hernandez

Photo: Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic hold a news conference on Aug. 9 detailing updates in their investigation into the death of journalist Jose Silvestre in Santo Domingo. Credit: Procuraduria General de la Republica Dominicana

The week in Latin America: Start-ups grow in Cuba

Here are stories that made headlines this week in Latin America, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

Small businesses in Cuba

Reporting from Havana, correspondent Tracy Wilkinson examines a boom in family start-up businesses in Cuba, where President Raul Castro is slowly implementing economic reforms intent on introducing basic free-market capitalism to the Communist nation -- and that includes slashing 1 million people off the government payroll.

"Change, of course, comes in fits and starts," Wilkinson writes. "Most Cubans probably have yet to feel much in the way of new prosperity, and many among the emerging crop of fledgling entrepreneurs continue to complain of burdensome red tape and the taxes they are required to pay."

One of the novelties of a new market-friendly Cuba? Car washes.

Ex-wife presidential candidacy deflated

Guatemala's constitutional court ruled this week that the former first lady is ineligible as a candidate for the Sept. 11 presidential election, a political defeat for current President Alvaro Colom, report Alex Renderos and Ken Ellingwood. Sandra Torres, the former first lady, divorced Colom last spring in order to get around a rule that bars close relatives of leaders from running for the high office.

Colom's coalition is now left without an apparent candidate for an election that is only a month away. That paves a smoother first-round showing for former Gen. Otto Perez Molina, who was a strong front-runner in the race even before Torres was disqualified. Perez was an officer during Guatemala's long U.S.-backed war against leftist rebels.

"Torres' coalition already had begun to abandon her," our story says. "Candidates for lower offices have distanced themselves and party activists have torn down her campaign signs."

A look at the numbers of Mexicans abroad

Did you know that 7,245 Mexicans live in France? That 4,572 Mexicans live in Italy? That 6,688 live in the United Kingdom? And 73 live in Luxembourg? (Luxembourg?) Mexico, in fact, is the biggest source of human emigration in the world, with more than 11.5 million of its citizens living outside the country, according to the World Bank.

Many live in cities that saw significant demonstrations against Mexico's drug war on May 8, a day in which Mexican nationals worldwide stepped up to protest violence that has left about 40,000 dead. Take a look at my latest La Plaza post, which follows an earlier post examining the phenomenon of internal migration in Mexico.

— Daniel Hernandez

Photo: A woman waits for customers at a pizzeria in Havana. Credit: Javier Galeano / Associated Press

CUBA: Jimmy Carter arrives on 3-day visit

 

 

Former President Jimmy Carter is on a three-day visit to Cuba amid speculation he may try to win the release of a 61-year-old American convicted by a Cuban court of activities aimed at undermining the Communist-led government.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, arrived in Havana on Monday with his wife Rosalynn. He is expected to meet with President Raul Castro and other Cuban officials. His visit is attracting a bit of local news coverage, including by Granma, the official Communist Party newspaper, which mentioned Carter's "genuine interest" in improving ties between the U.S. and Cuba, and by the Havana-based news agency Prensa Latina, which recalled that it was the Carter administration that first eased restrictions on travel to Cuba by Americans (both links in Spanish).

Alan Gross, a USAID contractor who says he was providing Internet equipment to Cubans, was sentenced this month to 15 years in prison, in a case that has further strained relations between Havana and Washington, especially on the issue of human rights. Over the last few months, the Cuban government has released all of the dissidents arrested in a 2003 crackdown.

Carter, on his second trip to Cuba, is the only U.S. president, sitting or otherwise, to have visited the island since the 1959 revolution.

— Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City

Photo: Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez greets former President Jimmy Carter at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Gonzalez / Granma.

 

Tensions high between Nicaragua, Costa Rica in border dispute

An error on Google Maps that showed a strip of land belonging to Costa Rica in Nicaraguan territory has evolved into a tense international dispute between the Central American neighbors.

The government of Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla sued its neighbor at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, claiming that Nicargua is unlawfully sitting on land on the San Juan River that belongs to Costa Rica, near the river's mouth to the Carribbean (link in Spanish). Costa Rica is also claiming that Nicaragua is contaminating the river.

Nicaragua admitted that it used a Google Maps mistake, since corrected by the search engine giant, to send troops onto Calero Island, a territory it calls disputed. Nicaragua is dredging land there, and is refusing to pull back.

"Costa Rica is seeing its dignity smeared and there is a sense of great national urgency" to resolve the conflict, Chinchilla said, according to reports.

The San Juan River marks much of the eastern border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and has been the source of tension between the neighbors for more than a century. The crisis, now a diplomatic one, is getting complicated.

The Organization of American States told both governments to meet and settle the dispute, and requested Nicaragua remove its troops from Costa Rican territory. But Nicaragua refused to obey. An advisor to President Daniel Ortega upped the ante when he claimed in a television interview that Costa Rica contaminates the San Juan River and not the other way around (link in Spanish).

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Image: A screen-grab from Google Maps showing the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Credit: Google Maps

Cholera detected in the Dominican Republic

A case of cholera has been detected in the Dominican Republic, the first sign that the worsening epidemic in neighboring Haiti could be crossing the border shared by the island nations. The cholera case was diagnosed in a 32-year-old Haitian man who works in the Dominican Republic and visited Haiti between Oct. 31 and Nov. 12, reports said.

A cholera case has also been detected in Florida, involving a woman who recently returned from Haiti.

The man's diagnosis in the Dominican Republic sent authorities scrambling to identify any other possible cholera cases; several suspected cases have turned out negative. The Dominican Republic has tightened control of its border with Haiti, including temporarily shutting down a traditional cross-border market in the Dominican border town of Dajabon.

At least 1,100 people in Haiti have succumbed to cholera since the outbreak began last month.

The Dominican government said Wednesday that it would ask employers in the tourism and construction sectors to temporarily stop hiring Haitian workers. Carpets doused with chlorine were being placed on border bridges to disinfect tires and shoes, reported Dominican Today. The man with cholera is in stable condition in a hospital in eastern Dominican Republic, the Miami Herald reported.

Times staff writer Joe Mozingo recently reported on a woman who attempted to save her 2-year-old son from the disease. The mother, Rosemane Saintelone, was unsuccessful, and then was turned away from public transit trucks when drivers saw her carrying her child's corpse. Mozingo and staff photographer Rick Loomis observed dozens of bodies piling up in pits.

Haiti has a presidential election scheduled for Nov. 28, but the campaigns are being hampered by the cholera outbreak, deadly anti-U.N. riots, and continued recovery efforts after the devastating January earthquake.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A cholera victim in Port-au-Prince. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Dilma Rousseff: Brazil's new president is latest female leader in Latin America

Brazilians partied on the beaches of Rio and Brazilian stocks rose with anticipation Monday morning as results from Sunday's runoff election confirmed Dilma Rousseff as the South American nation's first female president.

Rousseff, who has never held elective office, won largely due to her ties to her mentor, outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a beloved figure credited with transforming Brazil into a world player. "It's historic," a government worker celebrating Rousseff's win in Brasilia told the Daily Mail. "Brazil elected a factory worker and now a woman. Dilma will be a mother for the Brazilian people."

In her victory speech, Rousseff promised to further attack poverty in Brazil. Making reference to her historic win, she said, "I hope the fathers and mothers of little girls will look at them and say yes, women can."

Here's more coverage in The Times.

Rousseff joins a small but celebrated group of female leaders in Brazil's long history. The last time a woman ruled over Brazil was in the early 19th century, when Princess Maria Leopoldina served briefly as empress consort of the Brazilian empire, and was instrumental in Brazil's declaration of independence from Portugal in 1822. In the final period of the Brazilian monarchy, Princess Isabel, serving as regent, abolished slavery by signing the Ley Aurea in 1888 (link in Spanish).

The abolition of slavery in Brazil triggered the fall of the monarchy.

Brazil became a constitutional republic in 1889. The country witnessed a repressive military dictatorship between 1965 and 1985. It was during this time that Rousseff, daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant and a teacher, became active in Brazil's guerrilla resistance movement.

In this manner she is similar another modern female leader in the Americas. The popular former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, was a member of the resistance during the Pinochet dictatorship and was jailed and tortured, as Rousseff was in Brazil.

Three other women currently serve as leaders in Latin America. Laura Chinchilla was inaugurated as the first female president of Costa Rica in May. Weeks later in Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar became the first female prime minister. Argentina is led by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, its first elected female president.

Brazil hosts the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016, and is set to become a major oil exporter in the coming years.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Dilma Rousseff looks up to a television screen during a presidential debate on Oct. 25. Credit: Reuters

Dominican Republic closes border with Haiti over cholera scare; nearly 300 are dead

The Dominican Republic sealed its border with Haiti this week to ward off a cholera outbreak that is spreading inside the Carribean nation, which is still struggling to recover from January's devastating earthquake. The Dominican government closed the border to most Haitians and stepped up patrols along the 130-mile-long boundary after U.N. peacekeeping troops Monday fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of Haitians seeking to cross.

As of early Wednesday, nearly 300 Haitians have died in the cholera outrbreak, in what The Times reported as the worst cholera outbreak in Haiti in more than a century. The World Health Organization said the death rate was slowing, though the outbreak had not yet "peaked," meaning more deaths are likely. About 4,000 are reportedly sick.

The outbreak in St. Marc — which was not severely hit by the January quake — is blamed at least partly on contaminated water from the Artibonite River.

On Wednesday, the Dominican Republican reopened its border with Haiti under tight controls, reported Dominican Today. Health authorites ordered doctors to be on alert for patients with acute vomiting or diarrhea, symptoms related to the cholera infection.

— Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A man who doctors say died of cholera is carried to a morgue in St. Marc, Haiti. Credit: Ramon Espinosa / Associated Press

Tourism to Jamaica drops after drug-lord clashes

Tourism to Jamaica has dropped this year in the aftermath of a bloody government manhunt for alleged drug lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke, the Jamaica Observer newspaper reports.

Citing data released Wednesday by the Planning Institute of Jamaica, the Observer says stay-over visits to the island dropped 3.3% in June. "Overall, more than 6,300 less individuals stayed over in Jamaica during the quarter when compared to the corresponding period in 2009," the paper said.

The drop is blamed on days-long clashes between supporters of Coke and government forces in late May that left 76 people dead. Foreigners on Jamaica's tourist beaches were not considered in danger during the battles. But the violence brought international media attention to the slums of Kingston, Jamaica's capital, and the role of powerful gang leaders, such as Coke, who control them.

Coke was captured on June 22 (while wearing a disguise) and now faces multiple drug-related charges in the United States.

— Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A damaged police building in Kingston during clashes over Christopher "Dudus" Coke, May 25, 2010. Credit: Mark Brown / European Pressphoto Agency

Jailed drug lord's sex tape sells in Caribbean

It's selling like "hot bread" on the streets of Santo Domingo and it's the item "mas caliente" in San Juan. A DVD of a leaked sex tape belonging to a jailed Puerto Rican drug boss has become a sensation in the neighboring Caribbean capitals of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, even as authorities seek to suppress its sale  and arrest pirating vendors.

Jose Figueroa Agosto spent more than a decade on the run while dominating narcotics trafficking routes to the United States through Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. He was finally arrested July 17 by U.S. and Puerto Rican authorities after a chase in San Juan. Figueroa reportedly was wearing a wig and responded to a request for his name with, "You know who I am."

He faces multiple drug-related charges in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.

A book recently published by a government official in the Dominican Republic, "Figueroa Agosto: The Power of Narco," details Figueroa's exploits and knack with sea drop-off operations of illicit drugs. But many questions remain about the drug lord's reach inside governments and why he evaded capture for so long.

Figueroa's home video, reportedly showing him engaging in sex with several women, has only heightened his status, Time magazine notes. It is not clear how the video was obtained from the hands of police after it turned up in a raid last year at one of Figueroa's homes in Santo Domingo.

"The truth is these sort of videos aren't well-made, they're amateur," one porn producer told a Puerto RIcan news site. "The pornography is incidental. People buy it and see it because it's about Junior Capsula. He's an anti-hero, a big shot."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Jose Figueroa Agosto after his arrest in Puerto Rico. Credit: Dominican Today