Netpicks February 2021

Understanding Latin America

Dear readers and colleagues, this is the first Netpicks of 2021, and the first of the post Trump era. We hope our selections will provide you with some clues as to the possible direction of the new Biden administration’s Latin American policy, as well as analysis from Argentina, El Salvador and Chile.

This month we bring you six articles:

1. Argentina’s legalization of abortion is only the beginning of the battle for reproductive rights in Latin America 
2. What’s behind Bukele’s attacks on El Salvador’s peace accords
3. Biden’s Latin America policy will be constrained more by weak regional leadership than by Florida’s electoral politics
4. Cuba, though angered by terror designation, is looking past Trump
5. ‘I just needed to find my family’: the scandal of Chile’s stolen children
6. The Biden administration and Trump’s ashes: a UN phoenix?

We would also like to present the Foundation’s ATLAS OF THE STATELESS: facts and figures about exclusion and displacement published by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in December of 2020.

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ARGENTINA’S LEGALIZATION OF ABORTION IS ONLY THE BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN LATIN AMERICA 

Reproductive rights are at the center of the fight for equal citizenship for women and girls, but rights mean more than reproductive health understood as a medical minimum: they also include the right to interrupt a pregnancy. For most women in the region, abortion is clandestine, risky, and unsafe. It can leave them with life-threatening complications from hemorrhages and infections or even result in death. Despite the evidence related to these impacts, in Chile, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, safe abortion is illegal, with no exceptions, while in the latter country jail sentences for women accused of interrupting pregnancies can reach 40 or 50 years. In most countries of the region exceptions are provided only where this is necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life, or in a small set of very narrowly defined circumstances. The Argentinian Senate’s recent approval of legislation permitting abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy therefore represented a major step forward, and makes the country one of the few where safe, legal, and free abortion services are available: Cuba, Guyana, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay being the others. But much work still needs to be done, say the authors, if women, particularly women and girls in poverty and from ethnic and other minority groups, are to access the rights enshrined in the law. For this to take place, the pressing need is for well-funded health clinics, investment in education, programs to counter stigmatization, and action to prevent conservative movements from blocking services through claims of “conscientious objection.”
Pia Riggirozzi and  Jean Grugel, January 27^th, 2021
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2021/01/27/argentinas-legalisation-of-abortion-is-only-the-beginning-of-the-battle-for-reproductive-rights-in-latin-america/#author-info

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WHAT’S BEHIND BUKELE’S ATTACKS ON EL SALVADOR’S PEACE ACCORDS

January 16^th, 2021 represented the 29^th anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords that ended El Salvador’s long running civil war. Nevertheless, in December 2020 the country’s President, Nayib Bukele, called the accords a “farce” and an agreement between corrupt actors; he stated that January 16^th would now serve as remembrance of those who died or were disappeared during the conflict. Bukele won office on a campaign that presented the political parties of both Left and Right as corrupt, incompetent, and exhausted, his recent rejection of the accords consequently fits the pattern of his political discourse. His assertions are not, however, entirely baseless given that in the three decades since the signing of the agreements corruption has flourished, economic growth has been slow, inequality has been conspicuous and gang violence has increased. The problem says the author, is that by dismissing the Peace Accords Bukele is not simply rejecting the failures of his predecessors, but actually undermining the institutional foundation of Salvadorian democracy. The accords not only brought an end to twelve years of war, he says, they also created the framework for a more open and democratic society, above all by redefining the role of the armed forces and limiting them to national defense. While Bukele remains enormously popular in the El Salvador, a number of his actions over the last eighteen months have been criticized as undermining the country’s democratic base. The Trump administration turned a blind eye to the Salvadorian President’s activities, but with the Biden administration now in place, the author is calling for a change to US attitudes towards El Salvador: placing a greater emphasis on respecting and strengthening the democratic institutions outlined in the Peace Accords.
Geoff Thale, 23^rd January, 2021
https://www.wola.org/analysis/bukele-peace-accords/

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BIDEN’S LATIN AMERICA POLICY WILL BE CONSTRAINED MORE BY WEAK REGIONAL LEADERSHIP THAN BY FLORIDA’S ELECTORAL POLITICS

The arrival of the Biden presidency in the US has created expectations of changes to that country’s Latin American policy. Biden and his team have a great deal of experience and a long history of involvement in the region; the problem, says the author, is that a lack of regional leadership is likely to shape Biden’s approach, given that it will provide more opportunities for pressure by internal hardline voices. Historically, more cooperative US policy has been the result of favorable circumstances at home and pressure from Latin American leadership; the question now is who will provide the impetus for changes in today’s Latin America. Regional institutions such as UNASUR and CELAC have collapsed or been consumed by division, while the region’s largest countries, Brazil and Mexico have shown little interest in multilateral commitments, preferring to emphasize national sovereignty. Colombian policy towards Cuba and Venezuela, on the other hand, appears to align the country more closely with US hardliners rather than the Biden State Department and White House. Left-leaning governments in Argentina and Bolivia may provide Biden some opportunity for cooperation, but they have few friends in Washington, says the author. The absence of coherent pressure from Latin America, he says, may even limit what the Biden administration would prefer to do, given that external pressure is essential for strengthening the hand of those proposing change within the administration.
Tom Long, January 19^th, 2021
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2021/01/19/bidens-latin-america-policy-will-be-constrained-more-by-weak-regional-leadership-than-by-floridas-electoral-politics/

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CUBA, THOUGH ANGERED BY TERROR DESIGNATION, IS LOOKING PAST TRUMP

One of the last acts of the Trump government was to re-label Cuba a sponsor of terrorism, a three decades long designation lifted by the Obama administration in 2015. The move, classified by the Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel as “the death throes of a failed and corrupt administration” formed part of the Trump administration’s policy of squeezing the Island both diplomatically and economically; together with the Covid-19 pandemic the effects have been disastrous, above all in the tourist sector, one of the country’s major economic lifelines. The arrival of the Biden administration has consequently raised hopes that relations with the US could improve, that ‘the worst is over’ and that the country can ‘move on’. Optimism is based on the presence of Biden administration members such as Antony Blinken, the new Secretary of State, and Alejandro Mayorkas, nominated as Secretary of Homeland Security, both of whom were involved in negotiations with Cuba during President Obama’s second term. In any thawing of relations a major request of the Cuban administration would be the removal of the ‘terrorism’ designation, a touchy subject given that the Island has itself been subjected to many terrorist incidents over the years. Many of these, says William LeoGrande, professor of government at American University in Washington, were launched by Cuban exiles based in the United States and trained and organized by the C.I.A.
Ed Augustin and Kirk Semple, January 12^th, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/world/americas/cuba-terrorism-trump-biden.html

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‘I JUST NEEDED TO FIND MY FAMILY’: THE SCANDAL OF CHILE’S STOLEN CHILDREN

Maria Diemar was adopted by a Swedish couple in 1975. Her adoptive parents never hid her Chilean identity from her, telling her that she was the daughter of a poor woman who had given her up for adoption due to lack of ability to provide care. After years of difficult research, and lack of success, Diemar eventually realized the adoption was actually the result of pressure placed on her birth mother by the authorities, a practice that had become common in the era of the Pinochet dictatorship. During the 1970s and 80s, between 8,000 and 20,000 Chilean babies and young children were adopted by families across Europe and North America. The adoptions were part of a national strategy to eradicate childhood poverty, which the dictatorship hoped to accomplish, at least in part, by removing deprived children from the country by fair means or foul. The biological mothers, many of whom were from the indigenous Mapuche community, were typically very young and very poor and viewed by the dictatorship as a barrier to ‘progress’.  Many were forced to sign declarations of willingness to give up their children, while others were simply told their newborns had died. This is the story of children who were adopted by unknowing and often progressive Swedish couples, and the people from the Swedish agency in Chile who participated in taking them from their natural mothers and facilitating their removal from Chile. But despite recent evidence unearthed about the practice, convictions are yet to be made.
Aaron Nelsen, 26^th January, 2021
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jan/26/chile-stolen-children-international-adoption-sweden

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND TRUMP’S ASHES: A UN PHOENIX?

The United Nations has always had its share of skeptics and detractors. The present moment is no exception, and last year’s 75^th anniversary of the signing of the institution’s charter in San Francisco, took place in a context of questions about the institution’s effectiveness and ‘value for money’. With the arrival of the Biden presidency in the US, discussion now turns on how the new administration will tackle the brutal disregard for the global institution, and indeed for multilateralism itself, demonstrated by previous president Donald Trump. This is no minor matter. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown how necessary, and weak, international cooperation has been, while the day’s other major crisis, climate change, can clearly only be dealt by means of international cooperation. However, despite the skeptics the UN’s track record is good, says the author, adding that “when governments use intergovernmental organizations, they work. If global problems require global solutions, history suggests that we require strengthened intergovernmental organizations, especially those of the UN system.” Throughout its history, the United Nations has confronted bureaucratic challenges and radical changes in world politics, but has always managed reinvent itself and survive. In the present hostile environment it remains to be seen whether UN Secretary General, António Guterres, whose influence to this point has been limited, will be able to successfully navigate the shark infested waters. Previous Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld reputedly once said the UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell. Says the author: the United Nations is one reason that we are not already in that netherworld. The article is part of the series “On the Precipice: A Progressive Agenda in the Biden Era” published by the Foundation’s New York office. The series invites experts to reflect on how the Biden administration might address different issues, in order to better understand how receptive the incoming administration might be to a progressive agenda, and in which areas progressives will have to continue applying pressure.
Thomas G. Weiss, January 14^th, 2021
https://rosalux.nyc/biden-administration-united-nations/

THE ATLAS OF THE STATELESS: facts and figures about exclusion and displacement

A publication of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation, the Atlas is statelessness at a glance. The publication provides facts and figures about exclusion and displacement by means of videos, articles, video Statements and graphics. The Atlas of Stateless Persons provides information on the situation of stateless people worldwide in 53 graphics and 6 thematic articles as well as 19 country examples.
Download: https://rosalux-geneva.org/atlas-of-the-stateless-2/