Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: Ecuador boosts regional efforts to create a new security alliance, Mexico passes a polarizing judicial reform, and Peruvians reflect on former President Alberto Fujimori’s legacy.
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Ecuador, which is grappling with homicide rates that last year ranked among the highest in the world, might not seem like a natural place to found a new regional security alliance. But it is precisely because of the country’s plight that it raised its hand to do so when officials from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) recently floated the idea.
In March, the bank upped its focus on security-related projects in part due to its own calculations on the economic toll of insecurity, which costs Latin American and Caribbean countries 3.5 percent of their annual GDP. Of the world’s 50 “most homicidal” cities last year, 40 were in the region, according to Instituto Igarapé.
Envoys from at least 14 countries held a meeting about the prospective new IDB-backed alliance in August in the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil. Representatives of security ministries, justice ministries, police departments, prosecutorial units, and financial crime watchdogs attended. It was unusual to convene so many different actors in the same forum, the IDB’s Nathalie Alvarado told Foreign Policy.
After two days of deliberation, 12 countries from across Latin America expressed interest in joining a new security alliance, with the IDB serving as its technical secretariat. The group aims to have an official launch in Barbados in early December. They know that “we have a problem, and we need to address it as a region,” Alvarado said.
In a region rife with militarized approaches to security policy, the Guayaquil event staked out a new path. Speakers instead talked about the importance of data sharing, tracking crime groups’ financial assets, and giving poor young people alternative employment opportunities.
Some of the actors in attendance already coordinate via the Financial Action Task Force of Latin America, an anti-money-laundering group. Alvarado said that the IDB supports moving “from reactive and repressive policies, which is the norm, to policies that are much more proactive and preventive.”
The IDB’s philosophy may already be affecting security strategy in host nation Ecuador. The country started the year by declaring a war on drug gangs and issuing several “state of emergency” declarations, moves that sparked concerns that innocent citizens could be jailed or caught in the crossfire.
Now, the IDB and Ecuador are in the process of finalizing a $150 million loan for a violence prevention program that will include social service centers in at-risk areas as well as anti-money laundering, data analysis, and investigative training for law enforcement. States of emergency are still ongoing in some Ecuadorian provinces.
A previous attempt at a regional security alliance came as part of the now-defunct Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The bloc—which at its peak in the early 2010s counted 12 member states—created a South American Defense Council to develop a security strategy that in particular was independent from the priorities of the United States, political scientist and former Brazilian diplomat Felipe Krause said.
Much U.S. security cooperation in the region at the time fell under the banner of the war on drugs. When UNASUR approached security policy, “at first it was ‘defense’ … in the sense of national defense,” Krause said, “but quickly it became clear that one of the region’s main problems, which I’d say that today is the main problem, is this issue of public security which is very different from national security in the traditional sense.”
Despite that acknowledgement, action was hampered by disagreements among countries, lack of political interest, and insufficient funding, Krause said. Eventually, UNASUR and its security alliance foundered. Security coordination in Latin America in the years since has generally been limited to bilateral or minilateral initiatives. That’s one reason the new IDB project is so unique.
Ecuador, for its part, is charging ahead with cooperation on all fronts. In addition to volunteering to be the first president of the IDB-backed alliance, it has also entered a security cooperation deal with Washington. In January, the head of U.S. Southern Command announced that the United States would provide Ecuador with over $93 million in assistance, much of it security-related, over five years.
On Monday, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said he would propose a constitutional amendment to reallow foreign military bases on Ecuadorian soil. The country’s new 2008 constitution under former President Rafael Correa banned their presence, forcing the United States to withdraw from a base in the city of Manta.
Congressional support for Noboa’s amendment was not immediately clear. In April, Ecuadorian voters overwhelmingly backed a slate of his proposed security reforms in a referendum.
Noboa’s “all of the above” security strategy is being trialed by fire amid the country’s internal conflict. His government announced early positive results last month, with official statistics showing an 18 percent drop in homicides from the start of the year to Aug. 11, compared to the same period in 2023.
Friday, Sept. 20: The U.S. House of Representatives’ Western Hemisphere subcommittee holds a hearing on Venezuela’s elections.
Friday, Sept. 27: G-7 energy ministers gather in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.
Mexico’s judicial reform. Warnings from investors, governance experts, and the United States and Canada were not enough to prevent Mexico’s Congress from passing a controversial bill last weekend to overhaul the country’s judiciary. Mexicans will now directly elect judges to local courts as well as the Supreme Court. The reform is one of President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s final moves before he leaves office on Oct. 1.
In Bolivia, which has a similar system, its two judicial elections so far have produced a raft of blank and null votes, suggesting citizens do not know or do not care about the choices. The installed judges are broadly sympathetic to the ruling party.
“[Mexico] should prohibit judges from seeking reelection, which creates electoral pressures that undermine judicial independence,” Harvard University’s María Ballesteros and Andrew O’Donohue wrote in Foreign Policy. “Electing judges need not be fatal to democracy. But absent changes, Mexico’s judicial overhaul could be a step in that direction.”
Deepening drought. Several countries in South America are experiencing droughts. On Wednesday night, Ecuador experienced a scheduled power blackout prompted by low water levels in its hydropowered electricity system. Some 80 percent of the country’s electricity mix comes from hydropower.
Meanwhile, low rainfall in Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina has reduced water levels in key rivers, such as the Amazon River and the Paraguay river, impacting travel and shipping. Scientists cite the combined impacts of the La Niña weather phenomenon and climate change.
Dryer weather has also meant more fiery weather. Brazil’s space research agency, which uses satellites to track the number of fire hotspots across the continent, registered a record high for those year-to-date on Sept. 11. September is usually one of the peak months for fires in Brazil, as those who cut down trees use the dry period to burn away the remains.
¿Me entiendes? Mexican film stars and Emmy award presenters Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal charmed viewers of the Sunday ceremony in Los Angeles by presenting the Outstanding Directing for a Limited Anthology Series or Movie category entirely in Spanish.
Luna shouted out to “the 50 million people in this country who speak Spanish,” earning cheers from the crowd. Explaining their choice to speak en español, Bernal said the pair were told that the Emmys was losing part of its audience, so they decide to “push the limits.”
The stars, who met each other as childhood friends, star in Hulu’s upcoming series La Máquina about an aging boxer and his manager based in Mexico who are trying to make a comeback. It is Hulu’s first Spanish-language original series.
What film catapulted Luna and García Bernal to fame in the early 2000s?
Y Tu Mamá También
Volver
Julieta
Estación Central
We recommend this New York Times interview with Luna, García Bernal, and director Alfonso Cuarón that looks at how, 20 years later, “‘Y Tu Mamá También’ Changed Everything.”
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori died last week of cancer at age 86. His divisive legacy continues to loom large over the country’s politics.
Fujimori ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000, directing a pro-market overhaul of Peru’s economy and leading an anti-insurgency campaign against the Shining Past leftist insurgent group. He was later imprisoned for human rights violations during that period.
In 1992, amid insecurity in the country and congressional resistance to his legislative agenda, Fujimori shut down Congress and the Supreme Court and declared a state of emergency. Scholars say the move has inspired executive power grabs elsewhere in the region.
Fujimori’s story pulls from all corners of Latin American politics. As a child, he admired Argentina’s leftist leader Eva Perón, but he would go on to be a right-wing leader who carried out shock therapy programs. Fujimori was also able to connect with poor Indigenous workers while celebrating his immigrant heritage. (His parents moved to Peru from Japan.)
Fujimori was the first democratically elected president in the world to be tried and convicted of human rights abuses in his own country. He served around 16 years in prison before he was released on a controversial pardon and on humanitarian grounds last year.
Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko, remains influential in Peru’s opposition and advocated for the pardon. She is a likely presidential candidate for the next elections in 2026. “Well over two decades after his downfall, Peru still hasn’t gotten past Fujimori,” Mitra Taj wrote in Foreign Policy’s obituary.
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