Impunity Observer

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) spared no expense to support the candidacy of Claudia Sheinbaum. She won the presidential election on June 2, 2024, with 59.5 percent of the votes. AMLO’s political party, Morena, also won two-thirds of the seats at Congress. For Rafael Ramirez de Alba, an economics professor at the IPADE Business School, AMLO will stay behind the throne, and Morena will seek to apply its agenda through legislative reforms. Priorities include reforming the pension system, completely nationalizing the energy sector, and broadening trade integration with China. Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/06/04/mexico-is-now-a-one-party-state/

The Latin American Liberal Network (RELIAL)—which gathers around 50 think tanks and political parties advocating for free markets, the rule of law, and individual rights—has launched a permanent seminar to develop annual in-depth research projects. In 2023, researchers explored the growing influence of China in Latin America. Santiago Carranco holds a doctorate in international studies from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. He is an international-relations professor at the International University of Ecuador and one of the researchers with the RELIAL permanent seminar. In this podcast episode, Carranco discusses the changes to relations between China and small countries, in particular Ecuador and Peru, where he conducted his investigation. Carranco analyzes how the effects of the pandemic and the measures to curb it provided an opportunity to expand the influence of rising powers such as China. China took advantage of its economic leverage when the United States and Europe experienced economi

Carlson interviewed former Guatemala Secretary of Intelligence (2016–2020) Mario Duarte about his first-hand experience of the US State Department imposition on Guatemala. Duarte, also a US citizen, said DOS has weaponized the government to force upon allied nations its “ideological projects and socialist narratives.” Editor-at-Large Steve Hecht comments on the recent coverage of US media on the topic and recommends congressional investigations. Read the article: https://www.bizpacreview.com/2024/05/16/the-week-us-media-caught-on-to-state-department-criminality-in-guatemala-1459802/ Español: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/05/16/medios-estadounidenses-criminalidad-departamento-estado-guatemala/

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has made an intriguing offer: immediate citizenship for 5,000 intellectuals who wish to make the move. Albeit scant on details and merely an X post, his pitch poses a pertinent and fascinating question: when would this make sense for both the host nation and the new arrivals? Publisher Fergus Hodgson explores the opportunities for foreigners in El Salvador and how the country could benefit from the migration of talented individuals. Read the article: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/05/14/when-moving-to-el-salvador-is-a-win-win/ Buy the books: Hive Mind https://amzn.to/3yldAbf World of Opportunity https://amzn.to/3xMZWxa

Colombian President Gustavo Petro made energy transition one of his 2022 presidential campaign’s flagship policies. He pledged to replace fossil fuels with renewables and turn Ecopetrol, the fourth largest oil company in Latin America, into the region’s most influential green-energy firm. In this podcast episode, our Research Director Paz Gómez discusses her investigation on the reliability and state of Colombia's energy transition plan. She explains why, in the meantime, the lack of legal certainty has made his policy typical of populist pledges from Latin American caudillos. Read the investigation here: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/04/15/colombias-greenwashing-venezuelan-regime-steps-in-with-fossil-fuels/

The Joe Biden regime's policy priorities coincide with the agendas of US adversaries abroad. A February 20 letter by eight US senators told Biden that his administration's sanctions had attacked US allies and ignored corruption by US enemies. Editor-at-Large Steve Hecht explains how the Biden regime's relaxation of sanctions and enabling of money for Iran has empowered the dictatorship and its terrorist proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Read the article here: https://www.bizpacreview.com/2024/04/30/how-pro-hamas-protests-further-joe-bidens-tyranny-1456086/

Cuban exiles enjoy nostalgia for the homes and times they once knew. Those days are long gone, and they will never return. Honduras is creeping toward the same fate. Impunity Observer Publisher Fergus Hodgson comments on his article "The Exodus Is Turning Honduras into Cuba" and explains why this exodus will grow exponentially if socialist policies and autocratic trends continue. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ1UdKsAWYQ&t=124s Read the article: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/04/08/the-exodus-is-turning-honduras-into-cuba/ Read in Spanish: https://www.latribuna.hn/2024/04/07/el-exodo-esta-convirtiendo-a-honduras-en-una-nueva-cuba/

The Impunity Observer podcast is scaling up to a weekly episode and new formats that allow us to get closer to our audience. Our contributor Mauro Echeverría begins this weekly series with a deeper look at one of his investigations. His latest investigation revealed that a rising number of Chinese citizens are flying to Ecuador, where they begin their journey north. Echeverría discusses how he conducted the research—which included reaching out to three human smugglers and a Google Trends analysis—and his findings. For him, despite restrictions from the Chinese Communist Party, social media plays a major role in helping Chinese citizens obtain information about zouxian. That is a term coined by Chinese citizens to describe the risky route to the United States by land, much of it on foot. Read the investigation here: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/03/05/how-chinese-illegals-get-to-united-states/ #ecuador #migration #china

Rosa María Payá, founder of nonprofit Cuba Decide and daughter of assassinated Cuban political dissident Oswaldo Payá, took the floor on the last day of the examination of Cuba by the UN Human Rights Council. Her petition was simple: expel Cuba from the council. A Cuban official responded by attacking her character, but he said nothing in response to her summary of the regime's activities. The Impunity Observer reached out to Payá to learn firsthand what motivated her speech. In addition to broad and consistent violations of human rights on the island, Payá stressed that Cuba has been an instrumental partner to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine. Over 2,000 Cuban youth are serving with the Russian front in Ukraine, and the regime forbids young males to leave the island without permission. Moreover, the dictatorship has been echoing Russia Today’s programming—bypassing sanctions—and broadcasting it worldwide. Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/04/09/cuban-regime-cannot-refute-rosa-maria-paya

Fernando Linares—a Guatemalan lawyer and former congressman—has initiated the legal process to remove the president and 24 congressmen. All belong to President Bernardo Arévalo’s suspended Semilla party. According to Linares, this party has committed numerous illegalities, such as falsely registering more than 8,000 members to qualify for the ballot. He explains that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal should annul the 2023 elections and hold fresh elections in 2024. For Linares, the 2023 Guatemalan presidential election was a fraud. He contends that the US State Department and the European Union catapulted then unknown Arévalo to qualify and eventually win the electoral runoff. With the fraud, he contends, foreign socialist bureaucrats will have a globalist in office in Guatemala, an otherwise conservative nation. Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/03/01/fernando-linares-election-results-do-not-pass-smell-test/

Luis Espinosa Goded—a Spanish professor of economics at San Francisco University of Quito, Ecuador—explains how citizens and private businesses will pay a high price for the government's conflict with narcoterrorists. Curfew impositions, reduced mobility, and narco extortion are already some ways in which individuals—rather than the state or the narcos—are suffering from the escalating conflict that has inflamed the nation.  For Espinosa Goded, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s strategy of a higher value-added tax to purportedly finance the war against narcos hurts citizens instead of criminals. Noboa could have instead tightened government spending elsewhere to free up taxpayer resources. Espinosa Goded highlights that the Ecuadorian economy is in a dire situation, so the tax increase is a blow to businesses and individuals who cannot afford it.  Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/02/28/luis-espinosa-goded-ecuadorians-not-criminals-pay-narco-war/

Mario Duarte—co-founder and CEO of DH Global Strategy, a global consulting and lobbying firm—predicts 2024 will be a hectic year worldwide for geopolitics. He believes the Democratic Party is promoting the US border crisis: "the Western Hemisphere appears to be being weaponized to influence the US November elections in the United States." For Duarte, many illegal migrants cross the US border to get new economic opportunities, but others work together with narcos and terrorists. He adds that developed countries have contributed to the weakening of Third-World countries’ economies by promoting socialist politicians. Duarte explains why he coined the term Latinists. It refers to the unelected bureaucrats who want to intervene in the decision-making of Third-World countries. He claims these bureaucrats are arrogant because they think they know more than locals and what is best for their nations. Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/01/24/mario-duarte-the-border-crisis-is-deliberate/

Martín Litwak—an Argentine tax and wealth structuring expert—explains that the next three months are key to the Javier Milei administration for implementation of liberal reforms. Milei is enjoying a honeymoon period, and Argentines are on their summer vacations. Although Litwak expressed his excitement regarding a liberal government to be in power in Argentina and deregulate the economy, he is concerned the Milei administration has not led with tax cuts. Litwak contends that although Argentina has 170 taxes, 10 of them generate more than 92 percent of the state’s revenue. Further, since the burden is so high there is the potential to remove the other 160 and still bring in more revenue, following the logic of the Laffer Curve. For Litwak, Milei’s presidency can be either a total success or a complete failure; there is no middle ground. The latter will be a disaster for Argentina, since it will invite a return to power of Peronismo. Litwak also contends that the left will continue to fight in the streets aga

Mauro Echeverría—deputy editor of the Impunity Observer—and Sebastián Díaz—policy analyst with the Impunity Observer—explain the internal armed conflict in Ecuador. For them, the violence has been increasing since 2020. Díaz adds that gangs declared war on Ecuador after Adolfo “Fito” Macías, leader of the Los Choneros gang, escaped from prison on January 7. Since then, gangs have occupied many streets, firing on anyone in their way, and taken control of a TV network and a university. Díaz contends that the lack of state control in prisons has been an ongoing problem for the past three years. He adds that gangs have turned prisons into their operation centers. Currently, law enforcement agencies are attacking and capturing gang members in the streets, but there are no official statements regarding the situation inside the prisons. Díaz and Echeverría analyze the reactions to the violence crisis from politicians in the Americas such as US Representative María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Venezuelan opposition l

José Luis González Dubón—a Guatemalan lawyer, university professor, and independent journalist—explains the irregularities associated with President-Elect Bernardo Arévalo’s Semilla party. These include more than 8,000 forged signatures used to register the party. He contends that international community members such as the Organization of American States were accomplices to electoral fraud and favored their preferred candidate: Arévalo. For González, Arévalo should not take office in January 2024 because it is immoral and unlawful. If Arévalo does not take office, he explains, Congress must elect a temporary president and vice president until Guatemala holds a new presidential election. González contends that the US State Department’s modus operandi in Guatemala is to sanction its adversaries—anyone who promotes sovereignty and the rule of law—by revoking their US travel visas. He adds that the State Department has violated laws in the United States and Guatemala by applying the Engel List arbitrarily in

Carlos Torrebiarte—a director with the Association for the Defense of Private Property and a Nuestro Diario weekly columnist—explains how the US Embassy in Guatemala revoked his and his wife’s US travel visa. He contends that the embassy did this to spite him for speaking up against “the policies that the United States wants to impose in Guatemala.” For Torrebiarte, the Prosecutor General’s Office must continue its investigation of the Semilla party's fraudulent registration. He explains that if Semilla goes unpunished, it could lead to similar situations in future elections. Torrebiarte contends that US officials should not meddle in Guatemala’s internal affairs, especially in a dishonest way that reduces electoral integrity. He adds that the majority of citizens do not trust the electoral system and that this undermines democracy and the rule of law. Further, Torrebiarte claims citizens self-censor because they are afraid to speak up against US actions in Guatemala. Show notes: https://impunityobserver

Adam Dubove, cofounder and director of financial-intelligence service Ichimoku Fibonacci, and Eduardo Marty, founder and president of the Foundation for Intellectual Responsibility in Argentina, contend that Argentine President-Elect Javier Milei has a historic opportunity to succeed in his incoming administration. Milei, however, needs to work his way through Congress—where his party does not have a majority. Further, he needs to find a competent team to execute his market-liberalization plan. For Marty, former President Mauricio Macri behaved as a statesman by supporting Milei in the runoff election. Macri did so the day after his preferred candidate lost in the first round of the election. This helped Milei to win the runoff against Peronista candidate and Economy Minister Sergio Massa. For Marty, Milei is better prepared intellectually than right-leaning politicians such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro or the United States’s Donald Trump. Dubove and Marty agree that Milei’s team will follow Ecuador, El Salv

Maribel Espinoza—a Honduran congresswoman of the Salvador Party—contends that Xiomara Castro’s socialist Libre Party is on a mission to control every branch of the state. She explains that Libre congressmen have violated the Honduran Constitution and the Public Ministry Law with their appointment of a new attorney general. The decision has been in stalemate since August, so the past appointee, Daniel Sibrián, has remained in his position past his planned departure. Article 205 of the Constitution establishes that Congress must gather at least 86 votes out of 128 members (a two-thirds majority) to elect new Public Ministry authorities. However, only nine Libre congressmen appointed a new attorney general. Opposition congressmen are working to reverse the appointment of Johel Zelaya, who has no experience in criminal prosecution and appears to merely be the candidate most aligned with Libre. For Espinoza, Congress failed to appoint the new attorney general earlier because incumbent Libre refused to negotiate

Adam Dubove—cofounder and director of financial consulting firm Ichimoku Fibonacci—explains that Javier Milei can still beat Peronista Sergio Massa in the runoff. However, he predicts the results will be tight. Further, he contends that the incumbent Peronista government made an elaborate effort to undermine Milei’s candidacy through negative propaganda against the paleolibertarian through media allies and state-owned companies such as Argentine Railways. For Dubove, the Together for Change coalition, which he describes as the mainstream opposition, will be divided over whom they will support in the runoff. In addition, Dubove explains that if Milei wins the presidency, he will have to negotiate in Congress to pass his bills since he does not have a majority in the legislature. Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2023/10/24/can-the-javier-milei-liberalization-prevail/

Sebastián Díaz—an Impunity Observer policy analyst—and Mauro Echeverría—Impunity Observer deputy editor—explain how Ecuadorian President-Elect Daniel Noboa won the election against Correísmo. Further, they analyze the main challenges that Noboa will face in his term, which will last one year and a half, given that Guillermo Lasso dissolved Congress six months ago. For Díaz and Echeverría, Noboa’s capacity to address the chief concerns of Ecuadorians—the insecurity crisis and lack of economic opportunities—remains a mystery. They contend, however, that the president-elect will work swiftly to tackle these issues because he will need to make a name for himself before seeking reelection in 2025. Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2023/10/17/what-to-make-of-ecuadors-crisis-election/