Central American News in 2021

Dec 22, 2021

Dear Readers,

Welcome to our last newsletter of the year! Thank you so much to our first thousand subscribers to this newsletters and thousands more following on social media. We will be taking a well-deserved breaks for a few weeks.

This year, we have witnessed the troubled access to vaccines for covid-19 in the region, including Costa Rica, unexpected election results in Nicaragua, a leftist turn in Honduras, hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers from Central America, Haiti, Cuba and African and Asian nations crossing the isthmus, with Panama becoming a big transit point, the introduction of Bitcoin and the political consolidation of Bukele in El Salvador, and the intensification of land struggles in Guatemala. And much more that cannot be summed up here, of course.

On our side, we have welcomed new news curators, Jody García (Guatemala), Joan Collins and Rodrigo Medina (Panama) and Kirsten Cintigo (El Salvador). Big thanks to them and to our steadfast volunteer team of journalists, podcasters and social media people!

We represent a joint effort of Central Americans, in the region and in the diaspora, working together to bring you news from our diverse perspectives.

Join us in 2022 to see how the region unfolds.

Salú y felices fiestas,

Melissa

Headlines

Migration

📰 International Migrants Day: About a hundred migrants traveled to Mexico City to commemorate International Migrants Day and remember migrants who died making the journey.

📰 Immigration Reform: The Senate rejected the inclusion of immigration reform in the Biden administration's Build Back Better bill.

📰 Remain in Mexico Continues: A federal appeals court upheld a Texas judge’s ruling to continue the “Remain in Mexico” program. Migrant advocates continue to speak out against the “Remain in Mexico” program citing increased endangerment of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico.

📰 Salvadoran migrants: In 2021, 98,690 Salvadorans were apprehended at the border, the highest number in the last five years.

📰 Labor: The United States allocated $5 million to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity to improve the situation of workers in agricultural supply chains in Honduras and Guatemala, and maquila workers in El Salvador, to reduce migration.

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Costa Rica

📰 COVID-19: The first case of the omicron variant in the country was confirmed in a minor who traveled to the United States with his family. Health officials say the case does not imply changes in current measures while at the same time renewing calls for the public to comply with self-care protocols.

📰 First Woman to Oversee Elections: Zamora Chavarría was elected to lead the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal making history as the first woman in the Tribunal’s 72 years of existence. Chavarría’s first task will be to oversee the presidential and legislative elections on Feb. 6.

📰 Protecting Marine Life: President Carlos Alvarado signed a decree to increase the protected area for marine wildlife in the country’s coastal waters from 2.7% to 30%. The decree expands the protected areas of Isla del Coco in the Pacific and creates the Bicentennial Marine Managed Area.

📰 Electoral Sentiments: In a survey by Universidad de Costa Rica, four out of ten respondents reported an interest in the elections, and four in five people are concerned with the outcome of the election results on Feb. 6 or a probable April 3 runoff.

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El Salvador

📰 Congress: Last Wednesday, El Salvador’s Congress voted to strip Norman Quijano, a member of the Central American Parliament and former national legislator, of his immunity. Quijano could now be prosecuted for electoral fraud and illicit association in connection with his 2014 presidential campaign.

📰 Social Media: According to Human Rights Watch, government accounts, including President Nayib Bukele’s, are blocking people online who criticize the government. So far, 91 blocked accounts have been identified and include journalists, lawyers and activists.

📰 Detained Officials: Families of former officials who are detained gathered outside of La Esperanza Penal Center and called for their release. Some of those present included the relatives of former FMLN officials who were accused of money laundering.

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Guatemala

📰 Massacre: On December 18, 11 people were massacred in Nahualá, a community located in western Guatemala. The deaths of two more, including a police officer, were also reported. This occurred in a conflict zone for access to water and land. The residents blocked one of the main roads of the country to demand justice while the government of Alejandro Giammattei declared a state of siege.

📰 Corruption: Alejandra Carrillo, former deputy and now director of the Victim's Institute, used the law against femicide to block the press from publishing investigations that are linked to acts of corruption.

📰 Community Radios: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that the State of Guatemala violated freedom of expression, equality before the law and the right to participate in cultural life to the detriment of the Mayan Kaqchikel indigenous peoples of Sumpango by preventing them from operating their community radio stations, and ordered several measures of reparation.

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Honduras

📰 Xiomara Castro: The National Electoral Council of Honduras officially declared Xiomara Castro de Zelaya as the president-elect of Honduras, three weeks after the general elections were held.

📰 Omicron: Honduras confirmed its first Omicron cases in the country. Health authorities urge the population to receive their first, second, or if possible, third vaccine.

📰 Homicide rate: Honduras will close the year with between 41 and 42 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, or 3,500 victims. Experts assert that crime prevention and the strengthening of the investigative police are paramount to reduce it.

📰 ZEDE-free municipality: The municipal authorities of Omoa, Cortes, declared that the municipality is a "territory free of Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDE)", with substantial support of the population. Their next step is to demand that the next National Congress repeal the ZEDEs law.

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Nicaragua

📰 Political prisoners: The Nicaraguan government freed more than 1,000 common prisoners on Dec. 21., not including more than 160 prisoners who have been incarcerated for political reasons. Their families launched a fourth "Christmas without political prisoners" campaign.

📰 Vaccines: After receiving donations, Nicaragua used US$15.8 million to make its first purchase of WHO-approved covid-19 vaccines by acquiring doses of AstraZeneca.

📰 ALBA Diplomacy: President Daniel Ortega, along with the President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, arrived in Havana to participate in the XX Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP).

📰 University Closure: Nearly 4,000 students were left in limbo after the closure of the Universidad Hispanoamericana ordered by Daniel Ortega's government for not reporting their finances, according to authorities. Vilma Núñez, director of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENID), said it is "persecution against people who make use of their right to organize and associate."

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Panama

📰 Corpus Christi: UNESCO recognized the dances and cultural expressions of the Corpus Christi celebration as Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Corpus Christi is a religious feast celebrated in the province of Los Santos. Ritual and festive expressions of Congo Culture have also been recognized in 2018.

📰 State of Emergency: The Vice President of the Republic, José Gabriel Carrizo, announced that the state of emergency will be lifted on December 31. Panama has been under this measure since March 2020.

📰 Teacher vaccination: The Ministry of Education revealed that 4,000 teachers refuse to be vaccinated. The Minister, Maruja Gorday de Villalobos, explained that some teachers refuse vaccinations for cultural reasons, especially in the comarcas. The Teachers' Association agrees with the application of the doses.

📰 Omicron: Health authorities reported the first case of the omicron variant of covid-19 in Panama, detected in a citizen who works in a mining project who was recently in South Africa, and asked the population to redouble biosecurity measures and get vaccinated.

Lady Drag's story

Marvin Pleitez, a 39-year-old university theater professor, said he voted for Bukele in 2019, but his doubts about Bukele began to take shape when he shut down a government sexual diversity office.

A Honduran woman's campaign for the emergency contraceptive pill

A woman in Honduras who wants to avoid an unplanned pregnancy by using an emergency contraceptive pill could face criminal charges in her country.

In order to protest the difficulty of accessing this right, a woman left Honduran territory and took the pill, symbolically, standing on a platform in the middle of the sea, in international waters and far from Honduran jurisdiction.

Salvadorans in Belgium, in Limbo

Roberto Lara is one of thousands of Salvadorans waiting for the Belgian government to recognize their asylum status. Until the end of 2019, the vast majority of Salvadoran applicants for international protection were getting recognition by Belgium. But a change in procedures caused the situation to change drastically and suddenly.

Honduran child migration

"Between 2015 and 2019, the number of unaccompanied migrant children and youth from Honduras detained at the U.S. border nearly quadrupled from just over 5,400 to 20,398. Even more dramatic was the increase in the detention of Honduran families at the border, which, in the same period, went from 10,671 to 188,416." Agencia Ocote