A busy few weeks to cover Central America

Good morning everybody. I'm still trying to catch up on all the news as I was down in New York and at the Bronx Zoo this weekend. I know I connected with a number of new followers on Twitter within the last few weeks (thanks @incakolanews!). If you'd like to know more about me, you can read this post from last year as well as the links above to my scholarship and public writing. And now to some links.

NPR's Carrie Kahn takes a look at what is being done to tackle coffee rust which is devastating Central American coffee production. US AID as well as Starbucks and other private companies are spending millions of dollars to help Central American producers to save the coffee crops and to overcome the fungus. As of right now, there's no solid evidence that the migrant surge is connected to coffee rust (we don't really know) but it sure seems to be affecting the decisions of some rural inhabitants to head north. In a potentially positive development, Guatemala's national coffee industry announced the existence of a coffee plant that seems to be resistant to the fungus. It's been around since 1984.

Tim has two good links. The first includes a 20-minute video on what life is like in El Salvador for young children. The second includes a variety of links to recent stories and op-eds on the surge in unaccompanied minors including the letter from those who study Central America that I posted last week. I'm with George Will - we can handle the challenge of "eight-year-old criminals with their teddy bears" without deporting them en masse back to Central America although I'm hoping that the 20 kids in each US county statement was just for dramatic effect. More trade between the US and the region and less drug consumption in the US are parts of any potential solution.

President Otto Perez Molina wants $2 billion from the US to help deal with the region's challenges. I'm not sure where he gets the $2 billion from again (unless it was just the US should spend 10% of the $20 billion that it spends on the border in Central America). OPM and Honduran President Hernandez are looking for a plan Colombia for themselves. I think that someone needs to tell OPM that he already has a bit of Plan Colombia in Guatemala. 

Colombian trainers are there working with his security forces as is Colombian Iván Velásquez Gómez who is in charge of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Velásquez helped to strengthen Colombia's judicial institutions which is one of the main reasons why his country has improved so much in recent years. While in Colombia, Velásquez carried out "high-profile investigations into links between paramilitary groups and public officials." And how are he and CICIG doing in Guatemala? OPM said that his government will not extend CICIG's mandate and it is not clear at all that they have been supportive of CICIG's work to investigate the connections between organized crime and Guatemalan public officials. How about the US offer to fund CICIG for five-to-ten more years? What say you, Mr. President?

 You should also jump through to read OPM's statements about the Cold war - they are pretty laughable. 

And just a few more...Homicides are up approximately 70 percent in El Salvador...It's been a bad week for mayors (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras)...A Nicaraguan bus driver was arrested for having possibly been involved in the recent bus attack that killed several Sandinista supporters...Some thoughts from me in this recent Washington Post article.