International Roundup

By Agencies
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A U.S. company said that Mexican police and soldiers have illegally entered and seized a cargo port it operates on land it owns on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

Alabama-based Vulcan Materials said police forced their way into the Caribbean coast dock at Punta Venado, near Playa del Carmen, last week.

“It should be clear that the rule of law is no longer assured for foreign companies in Mexico. This invasion, unsupported by legal warrants, violates Vulcan’s commercial and property rights,” the company said in a statement.

Police and marines first occupied the property last Tuesday night, and they were still there as of Wednesday, according to the company.

President Andrés López Obrador has been in a dispute with Vulcan for several years. 

López needs the dock to get cement, crushed stone and other materials into the area to finish his pet project, a tourist train known as the Train Maya. 

The president shut down Vulcan’s stone quarries last May, arguing the company had extracted or exported stone without approval.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, a Republican from Alabama, released a statement saying that “this forcible seizure of private property is unlawful and unacceptable.”

“It is shameful that this Mexican presidential administration would rather confiscate American assets than the fentanyl killing hundreds of Americans per day,” Britt wrote. “Mexico should be more focused on going after the cartels than law-abiding businesses and hardworking people.”

GUATEMALA

A prosecutor in Guatemala asked a court this week to lift the immunity of one of the candidates in June presidential elections, because the candidate had asked about a judge’s motive in prosecuting journalists.

Candidates in Guatemala normally have immunity from being prosecuted while they are running, to ensure free elections.

But on Monday government prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche asked the country’s Supreme Court to lift the immunity of candidate Edmond Mulet, because Mulet had asked for an investigation into a judge.

It was the latest chapter in which Guatemala prosecutors have gone after journalists, politicians, former prosecutors and judges for having investigated corruption inside the government and judicial system.

Experts, opponents and foreign governments say that, instead of going after corruption, prosecutors in Guatemala are now going after those who denounce it.

“Let’s see if this crazy, totally unjustified request made by the prosecutor is upheld by the Supreme Court or not,” Mulet said Monday. “We will keep on in this process of fighting corruption and shortsightedness.”

Mulet, who usually places third or fourth in polls of the presidential candidates, is the only one of them who asked for an investigation of Judge Jimi Bremer.

In February, Bremer ordered the investigation of nine journalists from a newspaper whose president, a prominent government critic, has already been jailed on various charges since last year.

Bremer said journalists from El Periodico newspaper should be placed under investigation to determine whether they were maliciously pursuing prosecutors, judges and other members of Guatemala’s justice system.

Top prosecutor Cinthia Monterroso had argued that El Periodico published stories about complaints, disciplinary processes and questioned decisions by justice officials, including herself. She said who ordered such stories and the sources of their financing must be investigated.

The U.S. government has sharply criticized the weakening of anti-corruption efforts in Guatemala under President Alejandro Giammattei.

Some 30 judges, magistrates and prosecutors involved in the investigation or processing of those corruption cases have been forced to flee the country after facing legal action under the current administration.

VENEZUELA

The man responsible for running Venezuela’s oil industry — the one that pays for virtually everything in the troubled country, from subsidized food to ridiculously cheap gas — has quit amid investigations into alleged corruption among officials in various parts of the government.

Tareck El Aissami’s announcement Monday was shocking on multiple counts. 

He was seen as a loyal ruling party member and considered a key figure in the government’s efforts to evade punishing international economic sanctions.

And he led the state oil company PDVSA in a Venezuelan business sector widely considered to be corrupt — in a country where embezzelment, bribery, money laundering and other wrongdoing are a lifestyle.

“Obviously, they are giving it the patina of an anti-corruption probe,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

“Rule of law is not being advanced here. This is really a chance for the regime to sideline someone that it felt for some reason was a danger to it in the moment and to continue perpetuating acts of corruption once particular individuals have been forced out of the political scene,” Berg added.

Hours after El Aissami revealed his resignation on Twitter, President Nicolás Maduro called his government’s fight against corruption “bitter” and “painful.” 

He said he accepted the resignation “to facilitate all the investigations that should result in the establishment of the truth, the punishment of the culprits, and justice in all these cases.”

Venezuela’s National Anti-Corruption Police last week announced an investigation into unidentified public officials in the oil industry, the justice system and some local governments. 

Attorney General Tarek William Saab in a radio interview this week said that at least a half dozen officials, including people affiliated with PDVSA, had been arrested, and he expected more to be detained.

Among those arrested is Joselit Ramirez, a cryptocurrency regulator who was indicted in the U.S. along with El Aissami on money laundering charges in 2020.

Corruption has long been rampant in Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest petroleum reserves. 

But officials are rarely held accountable — a major irritant to citizens, the majority of whom live on $1.90 a day, the international benchmark of extreme poverty.

ECUADOR

Authorities in Ecuador are investigating small explosives sent to journalists at several media outlets, one of which detonated but did not injure anyone, and they said this week they have a suspect.

The suspect is not being identified so as not to hinder the continuing investigation, Secretary of State, Juan Zapata said, and he didn’t clarify if that person had been detained or if authorities know a motive for the attacks.

Zapata said all five of the packages sent in recent days included similar small explosive devices disguised as USB memory sticks.

One such stick exploded Monday in the newsroom of the Ecuavisa news channel when the journalist it was addressed to, Lenín Artieda, inserted the device into a computer. 

The computer was destroyed but nobody was hurt.

Artieda is known for his coverage of crime and corruption, but authorities have not said anything about the motive for the attacks other than to call them acts of terrorism.

Journalists at Teleamazonas, TC Televisión and Radio Exa channels also received similar packages but handed them safely over to police. 

A device addressed to a fifth journalist was intercepted by a courier service, Zapata said.

The journalism advocacy group Fundamedios expressed its concern over the mailings as a serious threat to the security of reporters. 

The group said that in 2022 there 356 attacks against journalists and media outlets, the highest number since 2018.