
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced the government’s designation of Consuelo Porras as a “corrupt and undemocratic actor” earlier this month. Vicepresident Kamala Harris voiced her disapproval when Bukele fired Supreme Court judges and the country’s chief prosecutor. federal government has been conspicuously critical of each country in the past year. military and police aid each year through CARSI, but no serious accountability measures exist to ensure this money is used to accurately identify, capture, and fairly prosecute the perpetrators of serious crimes. Each of the three countries receives millions in U.S. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has embarked on a project of dismantling democratic institutions like the Supreme Court and strengthening the state’s security apparatus, most recently through the state of exception, which enables law enforcement to jail arbitrarily.

In Guatemala, President Giamattei has reappointed Attorney General Consuelo Porras after her first term produced the arrest or exile of nearly every anti-corruption or anti-impunity investigator working at the national level, most notably special prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval. In Honduras, while the new presidency of Xiomara Castro is a positive development, the state bureaucracy remains occupied by countless Hernández loyalists. The multi-million-dollar aid package remains in effect, despite over a decade of deteriorating human rights conditions, ongoing border insecurity and the consolidation of criminal infrastructure in much of the region.

Re-establish effective state presence, services and security in communities at risk and.Support the development of strong, capable, and accountable Central American governments.Disrupt the movement of criminals and contraband to, within, and between the nations of Central America.Create safe streets for the citizens of the region.According to the State Department one-pager, its objectives were to: policy in the region reveals “an approach that is highly technical and ignores the political dimension.” ĬARSI began as the Central American component of the Mérida Initiative in the last year of the Bush administration, but it was rebranded shortly after Obama took office. Charles Call, non-resident Senior Fellow at Brookings, calls it “cherry picking to pull out CARSI (…) separate from the overall engagement with Central America.” According to Call, a more holistic review of U.S. Meanwhile, those who find value in CARSI’s continuation argue that its problems are more nuanced.

Whether CARSI caused the worsening situation or not, it’s at the least been a waste of funds.” Most of the funds did not go to military and police forces, but benefited economic elites there. arms in Latin America for decades, “evidence is strong that CARSI failed to improve security for people in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, as evidenced by the massive numbers of people who fled during the period of CARSI, at great risk, and that instead CARSI strengthened corrupt anti-democratic governments in those countries. Īccording to John Lindsay-Poland, who has researched the sale of U.S. Literature from human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights supports these claims. CARSI is expensive and counterproductive, it argues.

The primary concern listed in each document is the fragility of human rights in the region, but the letter to the State and Foreign Operations subcommittee also explicitly addresses costs. The reasons for such proposals merit consideration. Presently, neither motion has enough support to move forward. This follows a bill introduced in the Senate calling for a 5-year suspension of U.S. In April, 11 Representatives signed a letter to House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chair Barbara Lee requesting an end to funds promised under the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI).
Northern tale 3 level 40 trial#
As the trial of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández proceeds, as Guatemalan Attorney General María Consuelo Porras begins her controversial second term, and as the state of exception in El Salvador enters its 3rd month, progressive members of Congress and the Senate maintain concerns about police and military funding for governments in the Northern Triangle.
