Regional Round-Up: Venezuela Amnesty for Political Prisoners; Cubans Angered by Trump Tariff Threats on Oil Suppliers; Panama Removes Chinese Company from Canal; Election in Costa Rica

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio with a round-up and analysis of stories from the region. 

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Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome back, as always, to our regular Regional Round-Up, where we cover a variety of stories, and try to update others, so they continue to make sense, and we give them the continuity they need. Before we get there, just a note on the podcast. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we cover quite a lot, and hope that the Latin America Correspondent recordings are a resource you find useful, interesting and valuable. It is, of course, an ongoing body of work, which goes back a long way and will continue to journey, long into the future. It’s a cliche to say that you guys are important to us, but you really are, in the sense that although a lot of these recordings and interviews go live on major international broadcast platforms, this is where the story of what is happening in Latin America - across Latin America - has its home. We also want it to be personal, and cover the things you want covered and that you are engaged and interested in, so do write in and let us know if you feel there are gaps in the narratives. 

Additionally, whilst this will never reach a vast audience, the podcast does have strong numbers, and that’s down to your collective, committed, ongoing listenership. I know that this has grown over the years because you share information about the site, rate the show and alert other people to the broadcasts. It’s all very much appreciated, and please do continue to do so. It’s not about naked numbers, it’s about letting the right people know where we are.

But enough of the preamble, on with the round-up:

Let’s start in Venezuela today, where acting President Delcy Rodriguez has announced an upcoming draft amnesty bill designed to potentially release hundreds of political prisoners. To some extent this was always on the horizon, as it has been regularly called for by the Venezuelan opposition, by which I don’t mean to say that Delcy Rodriguez has given in to the opposition, rather that in taking the decision she is starving them of oxygen, as well as demonstrating to Donald Trump that he has nothing to listen to from the opposition. They - the Venezuelan opposition - are politically irrelevant at the moment. How they alter this narrative is an open question for them. 

Just as interesting is Rodriguez’s decision to shutdown the infamous, architecturally distinctive El Helicoide internment facility in Caracas, which we’ve covered before, a prison where torture and abuses have been standard operating procedure for years, and which recently has been home to a national basketball league played in its upper floors. The facility will be transformed fully into a sports and cultural center for nearby communities.

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Over in Cuba, national power outages meant that many people were unaware on Friday of the news that US President Trump had issued tariff threats to any country which supplied oil to the island. It’s fair to say that the mood on the street, once the news filtered through, was one of anger, as it makes life still more difficult for Cubans, who are already in extremis. 

Little doubt that Cuba will be a live, ongoing focus for the next few weeks. Trump’s eye has returned to the territory, and it is a focal point for his administration. 

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One of Trump’s broader aims in the hemisphere is to remove Chinese influence, which arguably was an aim first felt almost a year ago with one of the first blow-ups in Trump 2.0, which was related to the Panama Canal, after he threatened to take it back and specifically argued that it was in control of the Chinese. The focal point of this was based around two ports at either end of the canal, which had tender contracts held by Hong Kong-based firm CK Hutchison. Well, the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) has now announced that Danish firm Maersk will temporarily operate these ports after a Panamanian court ruled that the contracts were issued unlawfully, with “disproportionate bias” towards CK Hutchison.

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It’s an important weekend in Costa Rica, as the country heads to the polls in a presidential election which suggests a likely victory for Laura Fernandez, a right-wing populist, running on a ticket to crack down on drug trafficking and violence that has stricken the nation, normally seen as one of the most stable and peaceful in the region. Fernandez is also the continuity candidate, and has pledged to continue the policies of her predecessor Rodrigo Chaves, who remains popular despite having seen multiple corruption allegations pursue him during his time in office.

One of the more memorable lines from Laura Fernandez’s campaign has been to say: “Rodrigo Chaves’ project is not a four-year event, it’s a one-way street.”

Costa Rica is a small country, and sees itself in the same bracket as El Salvador and Ecuador, important because Ecuador went from also being one of the most stable, peaceful and secure countries in the region, to being torn apart by gang activity, in the blink of an eye, and Costa Ricans worry that the same could happen there. And the model they look to, to the north, is El Salvador, and Nayib Bukele’s hard-line policies, which are hugely successful, but also take a significant chunk out of long-established civil liberties. 

Continuing to echo Bukele’s strongman discourse, candidate Fernandez is also aiming for a supermajority in Congress which would allow her power to reform the constitution, and Costa Rica’s judiciary, permitting - among other things - consecutive and indefinite re-election.