Interamerican Watch Newsletter - Issue 492
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Inter-American Watch
Tuesday 12/05/2026Colombia
The Attorney General's Office charged Ricardo Roa, director of Colombia's state oil company, on Monday for allegedly violating campaign finance limits for the campaign that brought Gustavo Petro to the presidency, a campaign he managed in 2022. ...Read more >>Source: es-us.finanzas.yahoo.com
Gustavo Petro is back at it. In the final stretch of his four-year term, and in the midst of the campaign to elect his successor, the president of Colombia is determined to implement his plan to change the 1991 Constitution, despite the resistance it is generating in various sectors. In his May Day speech last week, he officially launched the campaign to convene a National Constituent Assembly, which he claims has a popular origin, despite being promoted by the government. His goal is to collect five million signatures to force the next Congress to approve the call for elections. “They will have the obligation to enact the call for the Constituent Assembly, and then we will see each other again in the streets and squares,” he rallied the crowd gathered on Labor Day in Parque de las Luces, in downtown Medellín. ...Read more >>
Source: elpais.com
Costa Rica
The new president of Costa Rica, Laura Fernández, announced this Friday during her inaugural address that she will promote a “deep” reform of the State to build a new Costa Rica and that she will apply a “firm hand” against organized crime. ...Read more >>Source: diariolasamericas.com
Cuba
This week, the president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Edgar Stuardo Ralón Orellana, addressed members of the European Parliament, stating that the human rights situation in Cuba is experiencing a "structural and aggravated" deterioration and that its improvement is only possible in a democracy. ...Read more >>Source: diariodecuba.com
During the special broadcast “Freedom Postponed: Selective Releases and Harassment of Political Prisoners,” produced on May 11 by the Cubalex Legal Information Center and Amnesty International, activists and human rights defenders denounced the intensification of repression in Cuba and warned about the critical physical and psychological condition of numerous political prisoners on the island. ...Read more >>
Source: martinoticias.com
Repression in Cuba increased in April. The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights released a record of at least 366 repressive actions, of which 27 were arrests and 339 were other types of abuse, including threats, harassment, and surveillance. The main victims are 71 political prisoners, common prisoners, and their families. ...Read more >>
Source: ntn24.com
The legal and human rights organization Cubalex denounced that the Cuban regime consolidated a model of "de facto exception" in March 2026, based on the militarization of civilian space and the daily control of the population, without formally declaring a state of exception. ...Read more >>
Source: diariodecuba.com
The United States sanctioned the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA, its director, and the mining company Moa Nickel, a joint venture with Canadian participation, on Thursday as part of an economic offensive aimed at cutting off the income of the regime that governs the island. The announcement, made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, coincided with the withdrawal of Canadian company Sherritt International from its joint operations in Cuba, a move that analysts interpret as a sign that Washington's pressure on Havana's foreign partners is beginning to take effect. ...Read more >>
Source: infobae.com
Ecuador
Former Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno denied having any links to the alleged corruption scheme being investigated in the Sinohydro case and accused former President Rafael Correa and former Assemblyman Ronny Aleaga of having “fabricated” the bribery accusations against him regarding the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant. ...Read more >>Source: infobae.com
Haiti
Hospitals in Haiti's Cite Soleil evacuated their patients and aid group MSF suspended its activities there on Monday as fighting between armed groups operating in the area that began a fortnight ago deteriorated over the weekend. MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, said hundreds of residents sought refuge in its hospital in the neighborhood - an impoverished part of the capital Port-au-Prince - where one of its security guards was shot by a stray bullet while inside the compound. ...Read more >>Source: reuters.com
Mexico
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum asked the United States this Thursday for "irrefutable" proof in the case of the governor of Sinaloa and nine other people accused of links to drug trafficking by the New York Attorney General's office. ...Read more >>Source: diariolasamericas.com
Nicaragua
The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, presided this Sunday in Miami over a mass in which he presented the newly ordained priest Cristhian David Mendieta as a symbol of the resistance of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church. From exile, which has kept him away from his country since 2019, Báez denounced that Nicaragua “is an orphaned country, lacking freedom and justice, a country whose dignity and future have been stolen.” ...Read more >>Source: infobae.com
United States
In a post on Truth Social, the president accused Tehran of having “played” with Washington for almost five decades and asserted that this situation “is over.” ...Read more >>Source: infobae.com
The administration of President Donald J. Trump has requested the revocation of the citizenship of former US Ambassador Víctor Manuel Rocha, sentenced in 2024 in Miami to 15 years in prison for spying for Cuba for 40 years, the Justice Department announced Friday. ...Read more >>
Source: diariolasamericas.com
Venezuela
In an unprecedented international operation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the transfer of 13 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Venezuela to the United States. ...Read more >>Source: infobae.com
The NGO Foro Penal reported on Saturday its tally of political prisoners still incarcerated, citing 457 people in state custody for political reasons, of whom 42 are foreign nationals or hold dual citizenship. ...Read more >>
Source: infobae.com
Another Venezuelan political prisoner has died in state custody, the non-governmental organization Foro Penal confirmed this Sunday. This is the second documented case in less than a week and brings the total number of political prisoners who have died in Venezuelan jails since 2014 to 20. The body of former councilman José Manuel García Sabino was found by officials inside the cells of the Anaco Municipal Police, in Anzoátegui state, about 400 kilometers from Caracas. ...Read more >>
Source: infobae.com
Opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado held the Venezuelan administration responsible this Thursday for the death of political prisoner Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, whom she accused of having been “disappeared, tortured, and murdered” while in the custody of prison officials. ...Read more >>
Source: infobae.com