🙏 Maduro’s pardon, Putin’s allies, and Panama’s floods

Hello, and welcome to the Latin America Weekly newsletter! In this issue: What the opposition in Venezuela needs for a successful political transition. Panama relocates an entire island threatened by climate change. And the lithium and nuclear deals between Russia and Bolivia.

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Can amnesties solve the political crisis in Venezuela?

Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum might have won the largest Latin American election of 2024 last week — and the magnitude of her victory will undoubtedly have big consequences looking forward. But one vote has the potential to become even more decisive this year: Venezuela.

Why it matters. The country has been at the center of regional politics since left-winger Hugo Chávez won the presidency in 1998, marking the start of Latin America’s “Pink Tide” — the rise of leftist leaders to power in several countries at the dawn of the century.

• As the most radicalized of the left-leaning governments in the continent, Chavismo polarized the country like few others, turning Venezuela into a battleground that included coups, rigged elections, 8 million refugees, and the worst economic crisis in modern continental history.

• Strong control over the country’s armed forces and top courts allowed Mr. Chávez’s heir, Nicolás Maduro, to stay in power despite dipping popularity, giving rhetorical ammunition for conservatives in a continent where authoritarianism had historically come from the right.

Challenger. After a decade of banning the country’s top opposition candidates, the Maduro administration has now seemingly made an exception with Edmundo González, who has so far been cleared to run despite support from vetoed opposition leader María Corina Machado.

• Most opinion polls have Mr. González ahead of Mr. Maduro. One has the challenger with 50 percent of voting intentions, against the incumbent’s 27 percent.

Yes, but … While his nomination has raised hopes among those yearning for change in Venezuela, the long list of competitive candidates banned in recent years (including Henrique Capriles, Leopoldo López, Corina Yoris, and more) means that skepticism also remains high.

• Former Táchira Governor César Pérez Vivas said this week that chavistas could be waiting to outlaw Mr. González’s candidacy only a few days before the election.

• Adding to suspicions, former presidential candidate Luis Ratti, a self-described member of the opposition whom many suspect to be a government infiltrate, filed a legal complaint against Mr. González’s ticket, opening the door to a potential ban before the July 28 presidential vote. 

Amnesties? Analysts in Venezuela believe that the government will not give up power unless some kind of credible offer of “no political persecution” is negotiated.

• “Only if the international rewards (for Mr. Maduro’s capture) are lifted, if investigations at the International Criminal Court are toned down, and if some kind of [amnesty] agreement is drafted, will the government accept defeat,” one analyst said.

• “It is preferable to give Mr. Maduro immunity with a lifetime congressional seat than to keep him as a lifetime president.”

Bitter pill. Amnesties would be hard to swallow for an opposition that has seen many of its leaders jailed and even tortured, but Mr. González seems to be willing to go against the tide. “They have been used as a tool in many transitions of this kind, so I can’t dismiss them,” Mr. González said recently.

What next. Datanálisis consultant Luis Vicente León, one of the most influential in the country, believes that an election victory would “only be the start” of a potential transition, with six long months ahead before the baton is passed in January 2025.

• “(The government) would keep control of the Assembly, the Electoral Tribunal, the Prosecutor and Comptroller’s offices, most regional and local governments, and the vast majority of state bureaucrats,” Mr. León argues. “Whatever the outcome of the vote, negotiations will be inevitable.”

Climate change engulfs island in Panama, displacing hundreds

Warnings about the irreversible consequences of climate change seem to be coming true in the region, which has recently experienced a wide range of extreme events, including heat waves, floods, and droughts.

• The latest example came from Panama, which completed the first permanent resettlement of an island that is being progressively swallowed by rising sea levels, an unprecedented event in the Caribbean. 

Crab Island. The drama takes us to Gardí Sugdub (“Crab Island”), a tiny piece of land set 1.2 kilometers off Panama’s northern coast, where officials evacuated 300 indigenous families from their homes, as the risk of destruction reached alarming levels.

• The residents are part of the Guna ethnicity, an aboriginal Caribbean group that settled in the San Blas archipelago over the last century. Their life was devoted to fishing, eventually turning the islands into a tourism destination.

Floods. According to government estimates, sea levels in the region were bound to rise between 0.56 and 0.76 meters by 2050, putting several islands at risk.

• The perception in the Guna autonomous administration was similar, as floods became more frequent and harsher, obstructing their normal economic activities. 

• “Families sometimes move to a different island after a flood, or the community builds them stronger homes reinforced with rocks and sand as a barrier to water,” former Guna authority Blas López Morales said in 2020. 

• “What will happen in 30 or 50 years? Maybe the Guna people will disappear, because floods are getting worse every day.”

Plan B. With overcrowding on the island also becoming a problem, the government decided to pay for a new settlement on the continent, building 300 concrete houses in the heart of a nearby rainforest as well as paved streets, schools, and even a new home for the autonomous indigenous legislature. 

Divisions. Despite USD 12 million invested and almost 10 years of work, a group of Guna refused to leave, denying that the island was sinking or complaining about the disadvantages of the new settlement. But a majority accepted the proposal, which made efforts to preserve local culture as much as possible.

• “There’s always some resistance to change because people like to hold on to their roots. But sooner or later, water will make walking on the island impossible, and they will choose to go,” Housing Minister Rogelio Paredes said. 

Why it matters. Environment Ministry officials believe rising sea levels will cause Panama to lose 2 percent of its coastal territory by 2050. Relocating the nearly 40,000 people affected would cost over USD 1 billion. 

• Other “catastrophic consequences” of seawater penetration include “erosion, wetland floods, contamination of aquifers and agricultural land, and biodiversity losses,” not to mention the infrastructure and social costs of forcing “all coastal regions to adapt,” which could turn the poorest and most vulnerable groups into “climate refugees.” 

High tide, low tide. The resettlement of nearly 2,000 Guna is the second iconic climate-related event Panama has seen over the past year, following the “unprecedented” slowdown of the country’s famous Panama Canal, this time due to low water levels caused by mass-scale droughts.

Russia and Bolivia have many reasons to get along 

Bolivian President Luis Arce traveled to Russia last week to attend the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual business event many see as an Eastern version of the World Economic Forum, which is held in the Swiss Alps.

Partnership. Mr. Arce and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, took the opportunity to hold a bilateral meeting with a broad cooperation agenda ranging from lithium and nuclear energy to geopolitics and cultural exchange programs.

• The countries grew closer since the rise of former Bolivian head of state Evo Morales, a strong critic of the U.S., and their partnership continued to expand even after his ousting via a coup in 2019, with Russian exports to Bolivia rising by 450 percent over the last half-decade.

Why it matters. The global East-West divide has deepened over the last few years, but Moscow is making efforts to preserve the few allies it still has. The country has also cooperated with the likes of Venezuela by offering ways for it to evade U.S. sanctions during a June 11 meeting.

Lithium. In December, Russia signed a USD 450 million lithium production deal with Bolivia, which holds one of the largest world reserves of the material. The deal came at a strategic time, as Mr. Putin is not on the best of terms with the two other lithium giants on the continent, Chile and Argentina. 

Another BRIC in the wall. The latest meeting also showed that Bolivia is interested in joining the BRICS, an economic bloc originally comprising Russia, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa — which recently expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. 

• The bloc reached further into Latin America with the inclusion of Argentina last year, but the move was blocked by the rise of the Western-aligned Javier Milei.

• Now, Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela have expressed interest in joining Brazil as regional representatives.

Nuclear. As part of the bilateral talks, Mr. Putin has also emphasized technological and nuclear cooperation, as his country is helping Bolivia build its first-ever nuclear reactor, a USD 300 million investment.

• The project is located in the city of El Alto, 4,000 meters above sea level, the highest altitude for any nuclear facility in the world. It will also foster the use of nuclear technologies in agriculture and medicine.

Defense. According to Diálogo Américas, Moscow wants to “demonstrate that it has a long-term security and defense relationship with Bolivia,” something that Mr. Putin has also tried to emphasize with its other allies in the region, with the U.S. denouncing that combat vessels were sent to Cuba and Venezuela to conduct combat exercises last week. 

Complementary. While Russia has been generally comfortable as an ally of left-wing Latin American governments, its partnership with Bolivia also fits in terms of both countries’ economic strengths and weaknesses. Just like Russia wants to secure a source of lithium for the future, Bolivia is also running out of natural gas, which is abundant in Moscow.

Quick catch up 

The Peruvian Congress has finally authorized President Dina Boluarte’s trip to China, where she will meet with Xi Jinping and local businesspeople later this month.

Voting for Javier Milei’s “omnibus bill,” which liberalizes multiple aspects of Argentina’s economy, will come down to the wire tonight in the Senate.

A U.S. court held Chiquita Brands, a successor to the infamous United Fruit Company, liable for financing Colombian paramilitary groups. 

A record soybean harvest is finally being shipped out by Paraguay, following delays due to droughts earlier this year. 

A court in Ecuador overturned a ruling that considered the government-sanctioned raid of the Mexican embassy in Quito “illegal and arbitrary,” in a big win for President Daniel Noboa.

Citing military incursions in Gaza, President Gustavo Petro said Colombia will suspend coal exports to Israel “until the genocide is over.”

Arab countries issued a press release against Argentinian President Javier Milei after he canceled a meeting due to the presence of a Palestinian representative.

Venezuela’s prosecutor general dismissed the slaying of a Venezuelan former military exiled in Chile as a false flag operation.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the assassination of an indigenous defender in the Guatemalan city of Escuintla. 

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