The Latin American Report # 634

Tension and open confrontation continue to mark the relations between the National Liberation Army (ELN in Spanish), the longest-standing guerrilla group in the Americas, and the Colombian regular Army, with the distinction that in recent years this fight has occurred while the Casa de Nariño is governed by the first president in the country's history with leftist tendencies. Anyone would have thought there was no better context for the ELN, like the dissolved FARC-EP, to lay down its arms, but it seems the unfortunate fate experienced by many demobilized members of the latter, and (above all) the progressive change in the ultimate interests of the former, no longer so oriented towards fulfilling the great tasks of revolutionary socialism but towards safeguarding market positions for drug trafficking, zones of influence, and general income flow, combined as factors preventing any real commitment to "peace" from ever existing.

On the contrary, they have probably given Gustavo Petro more problems than the Gulf Clan, Colombia's largest criminal organization. I recall how last year the ELN caused a major scandal with the kidnapping by one of their structures of the father of national team footballer Luis Díaz, a well-known figure for playing in English football. And then there have been the attacks on the Army or the bloody struggle with the so-called FARC-EP dissidents in regions like Catatumbo earlier this year. This Saturday, Colombian security forces reported that they had prevented an ELN attack against the facilities of a military battalion in the department of Boyacá.

"Since 5:30 in the morning, we received information from the community in Tunja about a vehicle with strange elements inside. Immediately, protocols were activated in conjunction with the Army, the National Police, and the Mayor's Office to verify what kind of elements were inside the vehicle," said the Secretary of Government of the referred state, located in the center of the country, in a video shared on social media and reported by EFE. Controlled detonations were carried out on some devices found in the vehicle, a dump truck, which somehow resulted in some injuries among the soldiers. Petro has openly included both the ELN and the FARC-EP dissidents as organizations directly involved in drug trafficking.

Shutdown

What does the US government shutdown have to say to Latin America? Well, as you know, I am following the appropriations process very closely because, once the regular legislation for the current fiscal year is approved, I hope it will clarify and standardize how the US foreign policy apparatus will be structured, and how foreign assistance to countries like Cuba will be managed. This approval of the (omnibus) appropriations act seems a rather distant goal right now, when it has been nearly forty days of shutdown just to agree on passing a Continuing Resolution, a dynamic that is significantly affecting the socioeconomic life of the United States, and for which no easy solutions appear on the immediate horizon due to the high polarization of the discussion.

In this sense, an interesting point is Trump's aggressive proposal, for the umpteenth time, to end the filibuster rule, which somehow grants significant negotiating power to the minority party. Considering the possibility, clearly remote, that Republicans decide to open that Pandora's box, with the wind in their favor right now but not facing a potential Democratic-majority senate in the future, I just want to point out the case of Cuba as a country with interests in that possibility.

The Island is one of the countries where the US Congress retains great power to shape foreign policy based on legislation such as the Foreign Assistance Act, the Cuban Democracy Act, the LIBERTAD Act, and the TSRA. The filibuster rule has prevented configurations favorable to passing legislation positive for an improvement in bilateral relations, like the one that years ago promoted the elimination of the prohibition on Americans traveling as tourists to Cuba, from translating into good results. By favorable configuration, I mean the existence, at least, of a simple majority in the Senate.

Ecuador

A rather scatological discussion for my taste between President Daniel Noboa and the opposition mayor of Guayaquil about the state of the water consumed by citizens there, but here is the reference for those interested.

This is all for today’s report.