The Latin American Report # 212

Stampede in Haiti

A "wild shooting" was reported in Port-au-Prince on Monday, with Reuters journalists witnessing the uncontrolled flight of civilians amid a hail of bullets that threatened to compromise the National Palace. Although it is unclear what institutionality remains alive there, with a "prime minister" who resigned remotely because he was unable to return to the country. The presidential council that should guide the transition has not yet been installed effectively, cracking, even more, the stability of a nation surrendered to the rule of the gangs. The people are frustrated and angry, with two alleged arms traffickers recently reportedly killed by a mob that snatched them from the police, as there is talk of some 60 people lynched by vigilante groups formed to repel organized crime. The security forces do not have enough firepower or manpower to resist the onslaught of alias Barbecue. The Reuters report notes that armed men took command of an armored vehicle patrolling the national palace, snatching it from the guards. Four dead bodies were also sighted in Petion-Ville, an upscale neighborhood that a tsunami of violence has hit since mid-March. More than 1,500 people are estimated to have been killed in the first quarter of the year.

The "Havana Syndrome", reloaded

The mystical syndrome allegedly suffered by officials of the U.S. intelligence, defense, and foreign policy communities, and first reported in the Cuban capital, has recently been worked on from two opposing perspectives. In the second half of March, it was reported that the National Institutes of Health "found no significant physical evidence of brain injury in a group of federal employees suffering symptoms of the Havana syndrome", and also found no differences "in most clinical measures between a group of 86 employees and their adult family members reporting unusual health incidents and a group of healthy volunteers with similar work assignments". In any case, the study does not deny the symptoms (visual problems, pain, dizziness, and cognitive dysfunction) or any temporary injury, nor does it rule out that the U.S. officers had been victims of the action of hostile forces employing "a form of directed energy", as attorney Mark Zaid, who represents many of those who have reported the "syndrome", continues to maintain. The intelligence community concluded that it was "very unlikely" this theory last year. Other scientists who have worked on parallel or earlier efforts to find an explanation for the "mystery" dispute the NIH findings.

Yesterday, with much fanfare, CBS announced it had "new evidence" linking Russia to the ailments of U.S. agents and diplomats. The experts they appealed to are a retired Army lieutenant colonel, who was part of the task force deployed to investigate the events, and Christo Grozev, a journalist acclaimed for his investigations on Russia. Their theory is that the U.S. government is trying to cover its back against its potential inability to protect its employees deployed overseas. But there is no tangible evidence to back up the new allegations, although it is undeniable that the findings presented contribute to building a plausible theory at least. Moscow rejected the accusations, precisely because "no one has published or expressed anywhere convincing evidence of these unfounded accusations".

Among the main findings reported is the alleged sighting in 2021 of a major Russian intelligence asset by the wife of a Justice Department attaché in Georgia, who was allegedly attacked inside their home with some "wave weapon" (the technologies comprising this term in Russian scientific jargon would be "pulsed microwave radiation" and "acoustic sound"). What I find contradictory about her story is that well-trained intelligence people—as the researchers themselves portray the Russians—fall for something as simple as being parked outside the residence where their target is, visible to security cameras, and also allowing the woman to look them in the eye and take a picture. Another reported sighting is of a Russian colonel wearing casual clothes and acting "suspicious" while inspecting and photographing vehicles at the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt, weeks before what would be the first known "sonic attack", in 2014. It seems a rather unbecoming gross error for the surgical level that Unit 29155 of Russian military intelligence supposedly has. One last important finding is that intelligence officers would have received promotions and awards for their operations and research related to "potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons in combat activities in urban settings". So there is a theory, I repeat, that it is rational to keep the case in the air to serve a certain political purpose, but attorney Zaid himself, who has had access to classified information about it, says that the most he has seen are "lines of inquiry that would take [them] potentially to answers [the Government] don't want to have to deal with".

María Corina Machado appeals to Norway, but she has no way out

The Scandinavian country facilitated the dialogue process between the opposition and Chavismo, which resulted in the so-called Barbados Agreements. Machado, disqualified by the Office of the Comptroller General, has asked Oslo to make the most of "the diplomatic resources at its disposal so that [the agreements] are fully complied with". Maduro's main nemesis has a serious problem: none of what she assumes as "violations" qualify as such, because it was not specified anywhere that she must be qualified to run. I have explained it many times here. The opposition signed a document in which every commitment will be fulfilled "following the Constitution and the laws", something they never allude to, perhaps guiltily. "With the solid international support we have had, achieving these elections is within our reach. There is still time to overcome the impediments and obstacles that Nicolás Maduro has imposed by establishing deadlines at his whim", denounces the former deputy. Now the opposition is [wrongly] hoping because the law allows the substitution of candidates up to ten days before the election party, but I refer to a key article: "The substitution of a candidate constitutes a new nomination and, consequently, when the substitute nominee is not a previously admitted candidate, he/she must comply with the requirements established in the present Law and its Regulations". Is it understood that Chavismo has the upper hand?

_{María Corina Machado (source).}

A piece of history