Eleven Latin American countries say that they have agreed to allow Venezuelans leaving their homeland to enter their countries even if their travel documents have expired. More than 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled the country's hyperinflation and severe shortages, but many do not have valid passports because renewing them can take years.
Brazil’s jailed former president Lula da Silva is preparing to give up his bid to run in next month’s presidential election, party sources said, after he lost two appeals at the Supreme Court on Thursday. That will remove the most popular candidate from October’s race and pave the way for Lula’s hand-chosen successor, Fernando Haddad, to become the Workers Party (PT) candidate.
Chile's Supreme Court ordered the seizure of more than US$1.6 million from the assets of the late dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The top court also sentenced three former military officers to four years in prison for embezzlement of public funds in a case involving Pinochet, but allowed them to remain free under conditional liberty.
During the conference entitled The democratic challenge to the autocracies of the 21st century in Latin America, organized by the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL) on Tuesday at the Senate of Uruguay, the Government of Venezuela was described as a dictatorship and it was exhorted that the democratic governments of the region, especially the Uruguayan government, not be indifferent or accomplices against today’s Latin America’s autocratic governments.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri plans to report Venezuela’s government to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity, according to an interview broadcast on CNN’s Spanish service on Sunday night. Macri said he would seek to refer populist President Nicolas Maduro’s government “in the coming weeks”, and that he had the backing of the presidents of Colombia, Chile and Paraguay.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday deplored and condemned the ongoing violence against civilians, including against students, in Nicaragua.Speaking on behalf of Mr. Guterres at the UN Headquarters, Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters that “the use of lethal force is not only unacceptable but is also in itself an obstacle to obtaining a political solution to the current crisis”.
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Venezuelan security forces have carried out hundreds of arbitrary killings under the guise of fighting crime, the UN's human rights body says. In the report it cites “shocking”accounts of young men being killed during operations, often in poor districts, over the past three years.
As the crisis worsens in Nicaragua, pressure on the part of society that demands the resignation of President Daniel Ortega remains. This generates that, in many cities like Masaya, the streets are blocked with more than 200 barricades while their neighbors organize to guarantee security and collect food for the protesters who are entrenched, resisting the paramilitary siege against the city. However, there has been an overflow of passport applications in recent weeks.
Immigration to Uruguay, Argentina and Chile has exploded exponentially in recent years. It is receiving an “unprecedented” daily requests for refuge in the southern country, according to the Director of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the Uruguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dianela Pi, who explained to MercoPress that “There are acts of discrimination and xenophobia that are emerging in Uruguay as never before” as a result of the migratory phenomenon. This wave comes mostly from citizens of Venezuelan origin.