Forrest Hylton

Colombia produced a record 2600 tons of cocaine in 2023 and at least a third of it passed through Ecuador – probably more. The Calabrian ’Ndrangheta long monopolised shipments to Europe via West Africa, but called on Albanian gangs to help move the increased volume through Guayaquil; the Albanians doubled the size of the loads and took over wholesaling in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and Spanish port cities. Since 2021 there has been a sharp spike in the numbers of Albanian ‘businessmen’ operating in Ecuador along with an increase of banana shipments to Albania. In Guayaquil, homicide grew by a factor of ten in less than a decade.

Javier Milei’s popularity and legitimacy have been significantly eroded since he came to power in 2023, as pessimism over the economy has increased, with 37 per cent of Argentinians expecting things to get worse in the coming year. Inflation, at 67 per cent annually, is among the highest in the world – with food prices skyrocketing. In January twice as many Argentinians visited Brazil as in the same month last year, while tourism in Argentina has dried up. Unwilling to devalue the peso, Milei is asking the IMF for a loan.

Juan Camilo Hernández was born in Caldono, in south-west Colombia, in 1977. When he was sixteen he took part in a day of collective work (minga) with the Nasa Indigenous people. A commission from the FARC, led by nineteen-year-old Betty Lorena Castro, showed up to help. An elder Nasa woman told Castro that they wanted no guerrillas in the minga, since the Indigenous struggle was independent of la lucha armada.

Donald Trump recently deported a planeload of 88 Brazilians, who arrived with cuts and bruises after being handcuffed, beaten and denied food and water during the flight from Louisiana. The plane had trouble with its engines and air-conditioning, and was forced to make unscheduled stops in Panama and Manaus, where the deportees were transferred to a Brazilian air force plane for the last leg to Belo Horizonte.

In response to attacks by warring guerrilla factions that have killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands in north-east Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has declared an ‘estado de conmoción interior’ for the country, as well as an ‘emergencia económica’ in the Caribbean department of the Guajira. (The last Colombian president to have declared a ‘state of internal commotion’ was Petro’s nemesis, Álvaro Uribe, leader from 2002 to 2010 and now facing trial on charges of bribery and witness tampering.) Petro will call on the armed forces to resolve the conflict by force rather than negotiation.