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Miami Herald
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Cuba's Oswaldo Payá hononed in D.C. amid questions about U.S. support for democracy
To mark another anniversary of the death of Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá on Tuesday, the National Endowment for Democracy honored the late Cuban opposition leader in a ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, an event that highlighted U.S. promotion of democracy and human rights in Cuba and around the world amid questions about the funding for such programs. Payá is one of the best known Cuban dissidents. He was the founder of the Christian Liberation Movement, which spearheaded the Varela Project — a signature-gathering effort for a plebiscite on the country´s political system to use the Cuban constitution to challenge Fidel Castro's rule. He was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European parliament and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by former Czech president and dissident Václav Havel. Payá and the young activist Harold Cepero were killed in 2012 in a car crash provoked by Cuban state security agents, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States, concluded in a 2023 report. Payá's wife, Ofelia Acevedo, and his daughter, Rosa María Payá, who continued his human rights activism in exile in the United States, received the endowment's 2025 Democracy Service Medal on his behalf. 'My father's fight was a deeply Cuban project inspired by faith, rooted in non-violence and centered on the dignity of the human person,' said Rosa María Payá. 'My father's vision was a vision for a free Cuba but also a vision for freedom and democracy in the Americas.' This project of 'liberation,' she said, lives on in the people who took to the streets on the island on July 11, 2021, to protest against the government. 'The Cuban regime is on the brink of collapse, and that means a great opportunity for the Cuban people, but it also brings a great deal of suffering,' she added in reference to the ongoing economic crisis and increased repression on the island. 'Despite misery, despite repression, despite the forced exile imposed on millions of Cubans, the Cuban people are still demanding freedom and protesting in the streets because we are convinced that the only way out of the crisis is to get rid of the dictatorship. The night will not be eternal,' she said, quoting her father. Acevedo recalled how her husband's vision for liberation, rooted in Christian faith, was centered around the idea that people needed to understand they had rights in order to overcome the paralyzing fear that totalitarian regimes instilled in the population. 'This was not an intellectual path,' she added. 'This is why their silence his voice, killed his body and that of Harold Cepero.' Several speakers – including Michael Kozack, the top State Department's official for the Western Hemisphere; former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, and Kenneth Wollack, the Vice Chair of the National Endowment for Democracy, recalled their encounters with Payá and the impression he left on them. 'A humility, a quiet confidence and a sense of faith that made him different, a sense of knowing where he was going, regardless of what was in front of him, regardless of the fear,' Martinez said. That Payá secured 25,000 signatures for the Varela Project from Cubans who were willing to attach their names to the petition exemplifies 'the kind of courage that he instilled in people,' Martinez added. Wollack said Payá 'will be remembered as a founding father of a free and democratic Cuba.' 'He frequently reminded us that the human desire for freedom is universal,' he added. 'He exposed the fiction that democracy can only grow in certain latitudes and the falsehood that liberty must be preceded by prosperity.' Awarded by the endowment's board of directors, the Democracy Service Medals pay tribute to individuals who have made an exceptional personal contribution to the cause of freedom, human rights and democracy. Notable past recipients include the Dalai Lama, Taiwan's former President Tsai Ing-wen, and Poland's former president, dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa. Over the years, U.S. policy supporting human rights defenders in Cuba has garnered bipartisan support, as reflected in the lineup of speakers at the event that included senators Ted Cruz, a Republican, and Dick Durbin, a Democrat, as well as Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Florida U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, a Republican, was scheduled to speak but could not attend. Díaz-Balart and Wasserman Schultz reintroduced a bipartisan bill on Monday that would rename the street in front of the Cuban Embassy in Washington as 'Oswaldo Payá Way.' Cruz and Durbin said they will support a similar measure in the Senate. Support for Cuba democracy programs For different reasons, U.S. support for human rights and democracy in Cuba has been in the spotlight recently. In a twist, after pushing the Inter-American Commission for years to complete the investigation into her father's death, Rosa Maria Payá won a seat on it, after the United States nominated her to serve as a commissioner. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban American, campaigned on her behalf and praised her in a statement, calling her a voice that 'would strengthen the Commission's ability to speak out clearly in defense of those facing repression, censorship and abuse.' Following her election, Payá vowed to make the human rights situation in Cuba and other countries under dictatorships in the Americas a pressing issue for the commission. 'The Americas have paid a very high price for tolerating the Cuban regime for so long,' she said in a statement after her election. 'Our region faces profound crises that seriously affect human rights: the crisis in Haiti, millions of forced migrants, increasing violence by non-state actors, and political persecution, often caused or exacerbated by the three dictatorships established on the continent,' Payá told the Miami Herald. 'The Commission can and should realign its priorities to respond to these grave challenges and offer OAS states concrete and actionable recommendations in defense of democracy in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, whose regime is at the head of the authoritarian octopus affecting the continent.' Since taking office, President Donald Trump and Rubio have taken actions to restore what they called 'a tough Cuba policy,' designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and imposing more sanctions on entities controlled by the Cuban military. The State Department has also expanded visa sanctions to officials linked to the Cuban medical official missions abroad. To mark the fourth anniversary of the islandwide July 11 uprising in 2021, the State Department imposed visa restrictions on Cuba's leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and other top officials for what it called their involvement in 'gross violations of human rights.' Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau also met virtually with Cuban activists in Havana to advocate for political prisoners and support democracy amid heightened diplomatic tensions and Cuban government accusations against the U.S. At the same time, some early cuts to democracy programs in Cuba have created controversy, particularly in Miami, where many of the affected groups operate. Broader administration efforts to reduce U.S. foreign aid and dismantle the Voice of America have impacted several institutions providing support to Cuban activists and independent media, as well as the transmissions of Radio Martí and its website, Martí Noticias. While some of those decisions have been reversed, questions remain about the future of the programs amid ongoing legal battles. A recent State Department reorganization that reduced the size of its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, known as DRL, has also sparked broader questioning of the administration's commitment to advancing democratic values worldwide. The State Department denies that's the case. 'DRL was not eliminated and many of their Cuba programs remain,' a State Department spokesperson said. 'The State Department undertook a significant and historic reorganization to better align our programs with the America First foreign policy priorities. The reorganization does not signal a retreat from promoting democracy or supporting human rights in Cuba.' The spokesperson said the promotion of democracy and human rights in Cuba are 'top priority' for the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Given Díaz-Balart's prominent role in the making of the government's budget –as vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee and chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs – it is likely Congress will continue to fund at least some Cuba-related democracy promotion programs. His appropriation bill to fund the State Department and other foreign operations for fiscal year 2026 allocates $40 million 'to promote democracy and strengthen civil society in Cuba, including supporting political prisoners.' It requests $40 million to fund the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which manages the Martí stations, despite the administration being involved in a legal battle to shut down the office's parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The $40 million is part of a $681 million budget for 'international communication activities.' The State Department requested only $153 million 'to enable the orderly shutdown' of the agency's operations. Against this background, Wasserman Schultz called on maintaining U.S. support to democracy promotion on Tuesday's event. 'Solidarity must be match with action and that's where the Nationall Endowment for Democracy plays such an essential role,' she said. 'At a time authoritarianism is resurgent, when regimes grow bolder in their censorship, surveillance and suppression, the United States must meet the moment,' she said. 'That means fully funding democracy assistance efforts, protecting NED, its core entities, from short sighted cuts, and that means recognizing support for democracy, not as security, but as strategic necessity, as moral imperative [and] an indispensable component of our national security.' Cuts to NED's funding For NED, the opportunity to highlight its work on supporting pro-democracy and human rights activists in Cuba comes at a time when the organization is trying to make a case to the administration that promoting democratic values worldwide is key to U.S. national interests. The NED is an independent foundation directly funded by Congress annually. Just around 5% of its funds come from the State Department's foreign assistance budget. Still, the organization was targeted in early efforts by the Trump administration to freeze foreign assistance funds, and for several weeks, the administration withheld NED's funding, including money directly allocated by Congress. After NED sued the administration, funds were made available again. However, the organization announced in June that it had reduced its workforce by 35% as part of a 'transformation driven by financial pressures.' After a review, the State Department ultimately canceled some of the foreign assistance funds allocated to the endowment, including funds the organization had budgeted for new grants to Cuba-focused organizations this year. That forced NED to cut back on some programs to maintain its support to about 30 Cuban independent media and human rights organizations, a source with knowledge of the cuts said. The State Department did not request a budget for NED, nor did it request money for the agency's democracy fund for the upcoming fiscal year 2026, which starts in October. But Díaz-Balart's chief of staff, César González, said Tuesday there is 'robust funding' for the endowment in the State Department's appropriations bill under discussion. Díaz-Balart's bill maintains NED's funding for fiscal year 2026 at similar levels to previous years, setting aside $315 million for the organization and its core institutes, including approximately $105 million specifically for democracy programs. There's an additional $345 million 'democracy fund' for the State Department, and instructions for the agency to use $2.3 billion from different budget allocations 'for democracy programs in adversarial, anti-American countries, countries whose malign activities pose a national security threat to the United States, or countries seeking to strengthen democratic institutions and processes.' The bill still needs to be approved by the full House and then the Senate before it is sent to Trump for final approval. Tying the two themes of the night, NED's president Damon Wilson said that 'honoring Payá tonight affirms all of our commitment to stand with human people until they are free. So we are so grateful for the congressional support that ensures the American people will continue to stand by those who risk everything for the cause of liberty.'
New Straits Times
23-07-2025
- New Straits Times
Ecuador's 'Fito': From taxi driver to drug lord to an American jail
FORMER mechanic and taxi driver Adolfo Macias rose from a life of petty crime to the top of Ecuador's drug gang hierarchy, using extreme violence to try and submit an entire country to his will. His reign of terror has seemingly come to an end, however, as the 45-year-old head of Ecuador's "Los Choneros" gang pleaded "not guilty" to drug and weapons charges in a New York court Monday. In January 2024, Macias – alias "Fito" – made international headlines when he escaped from a prison in Ecuador's port city of Guayaquil – a hub for drug exports. He had been serving a 34-year sentence for weapons possession, narcotics trafficking, organised crime and murder. Jail did little to check Macias's ambitions: he earned his law degree behind bars and continued pulling the strings of the criminal underworld. Videos have emerged of him holding wild prison parties, some with fireworks. In one recording, a mariachi band and the drug lord's daughter perform a narco-glorifying ballad in the prison yard while he laughingly strokes a fighting cock. Fito exercised "significant internal control over the prison," the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) noted in a 2022 report following a meeting with the gang leader. His escape prompted the government to deploy the military, to the anger of Los Choneros, which unleashed a wave of violence in response. The gang detonated car bombs, held prison guards hostage and stormed a television station during a live broadcast in several days of running battles that prompted President Daniel Noboa to declare a "state of internal armed conflict." In June this year, a massive military and police operation dragged a bedraggled Fito from a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, where he was born. No shots were fired, and the government was quick to release photos of the overweight, dishevelled Macias appearing rather less dangerous than his deadly reputation. On Sunday, he was put on a New York-bound plane in Guayaquil wearing shorts, a bulletproof vest and helmet, and on Monday he appeared in court. He was smiling. Macias became leader of Los Choneros in 2020, at a time when it was transitioning away from petty crime and establishing links with the big-league Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. "The defendant served for years as the principal leader of Los Choneros, a notoriously violent transnational criminal organization, and was a ruthless and infamous drug and firearms trafficker," US attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement ahead of Monday's hearing. "The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control," he added. Macias has also been linked to the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio at a political rally in 2023. Villavicencio had accused Los Choneros of threatening his life. The gang is one of dozens blamed for bringing bloodshed to Ecuador, once one of the world's safest nations, but now one of its deadliest. The country is wedged between the world's top two cocaine exporters – Colombia and Peru – and more than 70 percent of all worldwide production now passes through Ecuador's ports, according to government data. Under Macias's leadership, Los Choneros "have leveraged their connections and sway... to become a key link in the transnational cocaine supply chain," according to an analysis by the InSight Crime think-tank. It said the gang oversees the arrival of cocaine shipments from Colombia and uses a fleet of speedboats to send it on to Central America and Mexico, from where it is shipped to consumer markets in North America and Europe. "With or without Fito, Ecuador will continue to be a top cocaine transit nation," said the NGO. Macias had also escaped prison in 2013, but managed to elude authorities for only three months at the time. On Sunday, he became the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since the measure was written into law last year, after a referendum in which Noboa sought the approval of measures to boost his war on criminal gangs.
National Observer
08-07-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
Inuit podcast takes us inside the Arctic meltdown
Siila Watt-Cloutier remembers gliding by dog sled across the frozen Arctic as a child — past landscapes that are now vanishing before her eyes. Through her new podcast, the Inuk leader and climate advocate is spotlighting Indigenous perspectives and the challenges facing the region. 'We are hit very hard up in the Arctic. We hear and see it every single day,' Watt-Cloutier said. 'Listen to those voices on the ground, not just the politicians.' The four-part, limited series, A Radical Act of Hope, produced by the BC-based Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions draws on her 2015 memoir, The Right to Be Cold, which frames climate change as fundamentally a human rights crisis, rather than solely a scientific or environmental issue. 'Not that many people read books today,' she said. 'With podcasts now being the 'it' medium, why not contribute in some small way a narrative that I believe needs to shift?' The podcast follows Watt-Cloutier's personal journey, from her early years in Kuujjuaq, a remote Inuit community in northern Quebec and speaking only Inuktitut, to her work negotiating the Stockholm Convention to ban toxic chemicals in the Arctic and leading the first legal petition linking climate change to human rights at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. 'This is just a small contribution from my perspective on what I felt has worked for me in terms of changing the minds and hearts of people through the work that I've done,' Watt-Cloutier said. The call for a new narrative comes as she voices concern about the current direction of climate policy. Watt-Cloutier is critical of the current political tone in the climate debate, describing it as 'eco-based, fear-based leadership that is creating even more chaos and more wars.' 'We are hit very hard up in the Arctic. We hear and see it every single day,' said Siila Watt-Cloutier, Inuk leader and podcast host. 'Listen to those voices on the ground, not just the politicians.' As governments fast-track mining and infrastructure projects in the North, she warns the Arctic is increasingly being viewed as a business opportunity rather than an environmental disaster. 'Don't see the Arctic issues — and the rich minerals and resources that are there as a result of the melt — as an opportunity,' she said. 'See it as an environmental disaster, and then work from there to build the economy of the Arctic that's not going to make things worse. It shouldn't be that the economy is going to be the trump card again. Building our economy should not be at the cost of lowering greenhouse gas emissions.' Arctic sea ice reached its lowest winter maximum on record this March, with the National Snow and Ice Data Centre reporting just 14.33 million square kilometres at its peak — more than a million square kilometres below the long-term average and the smallest extent in the satellite era. As the ice vanishes, new shipping lanes and mineral frontiers are opening, fuelling expectations of a scramble for oil, gas and critical minerals. The environmental toll is mounting: permafrost is thawing, releasing methane and carbon dioxide, while coastal erosion and wildfires are accelerating. The project is led by Ian Mauro, executive director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, an environmental scientist and filmmaker who has worked with Watt-Cloutier for over a decade. Mauro said the podcast is a response to a 'green backlash' — the growing pressure to put climate action on hold for short-term economic fixes like expanding fossil fuel projects and accelerating resource extraction, particularly in the face of Trump's trade war. 'We cannot afford to backtrack on our climate ambition at the expense of these other issues,' Mauro said. 'We have to figure out how to multi-solve and be holistic in our approach, which is why leadership matters right now.' Mauro said the series comes at a time when Indigenous knowledge is finally being recognized as essential to climate solutions, both in Canada and around the world. 'We still live in a deeply racist society where people will quickly dismiss these types of knowledge,' Mauro said. 'But we are also in an era of reconciliation where there is a deeper appreciation and respect that has formed culturally in this country, and someone like Siila Watt-Cloutier rises to the surface in that conversation.' Each episode features Indigenous women leaders, including Lena Evic, founder of Iqaluit's Pirurvik Centre, and Nicole Redvers, a planetary health expert. In the final episode, former Greenland premier Aleqa Hammond joins a discussion about Arctic geopolitics and Indigenous sovereignty. 'I didn't want these podcasts just to be my take on conscious leadership,' Watt-Cloutier said. 'I wanted to invite other Indigenous women to share this platform, to share their stories — women that I feel are already leading from that space of consciousness and wisdom.' Co-host Janna Wale, the institute's Indigenous research and partnerships lead, who is Gitxsan and Cree-Métis, called the series 'long overdue.' She said the podcast was designed to break through the 'eco-grief and eco-anxiety' dominating climate news by centring Indigenous knowledge and climate optimism. 'Indigenous people have been climate leaders since time immemorial,' Wale said. 'We have had relationships with the land that have helped to foster sustainability and practices that have contributed to bringing balance to our ecosystems. Centring these voices, centring those ideas, and inspiring the next generation of leaders using that kind of knowledge is so important.' Watt-Cloutier said Indigenous knowledge and leadership are essential as Canada faces accelerating Arctic change. 'The land and culture offer more solutions, I think, than most institutions can,' she said. 'I believe strongly that Indigenous wisdom is the medicine the world seeks in addressing these issues of sustainability … Rather than seeing us as victims to globalization and to pollution and to climate change, we can become teachers if given the opportunities of respect and equality and equity on every front.'
Sharjah 24
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Sharjah 24
Drug lord 'Fito,' criminal mastermind in Ecuador
The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. President Daniel Noboa's government then released "WANTED" posters with images of his face and offered $1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Macias Villamar's gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car bombs, holding prison guards hostage and taking over a television station during a live broadcast by force. After months of pursuit, Fito was captured in the coastal city of Manta in a massive military and police operation in which no shots were fired. According to local media, he was found hiding in a bunker accessible by lifting a trap door in the floor of a luxury home. After his recapture, President Noboa predicted that more crime bosses would fall. "We will take back the country. Without respite," he declared. Noboa also said his government was awaiting a response from US authorities regarding Fito's extradition. American prosecutors have charged him, in absentia, with seven counts of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling. They allege his gang worked with Mexico's Sinaloa cartel to control key drug trafficking routes between South America and the United States. Prison boss Before his escape in January 2024, Fito was the boss of his Guayaquil prison, which was adorned with images glorifying him, weapons, dollars and lions. Videos show celebrations he held inside the prison, including with fireworks and a mariachi band. In one clip, he appears waving, laughing and petting a fighting rooster. Fito exercised "significant internal control over the prison," the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) noted in a 2022 report following a meeting with the gang leader. He earned his law degree in prison, where he was serving a 34-year sentence for weapons possession, drug trafficking, organized crime and murder. Los Choneros, which first engaged in common crimes, later established links with Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers. The gang currently has ties to the Sinaloa cartel, the Gulf Clan -- the world's largest cocaine exporter -- and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory. The defense ministry has estimated that the gang is present in 10 of Ecuador's 24 provinces. Virtual army On social media, Los Choneros threatens journalists and issues warnings to other gangs in videos set to music. "Active, Choneros, we are lions here. With Uncle Fito, as expected, controlling the neighborhood, we are bosses here," they say in one of their songs. When Fito escaped from prison, he was identified as the mastermind behind the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio in August 2023. Then-president Guillermo Lasso ordered his transfer to a maximum-security prison in a law enforcement operation that sparked protests by prisoners. The investigation later took a turn and focused on Los Lobos, a rival gang, as being behind Villavicencio's murder. Fito had also escaped prison in 2013, but he eluded authorities for only three months.
Miami Herald
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Haiti, Venezuela, migration on agenda as OAS General Assembly opens in Antigua
The Organization of American States opened its general assembly on Wednesday in St. John's, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, where for the first time its top leader hails from the Caribbean region. Albert Ramdin, a former number two of the hemispheric agency and foreign minister of Suriname, was elected in March and took over the reins last month. He faces many challenges, from the governance crises in Haiti to Cuba and Venezuela — and the OAS' inability to make a dent on those issues over the years — to the Trump administration's move away from multilateral organizations. While Ramdin's election has been welcomed by the United States, Washington did not publicly endorse any candidate in the race for secretary general. Still, the U.S. is backing a candidate for commissioner on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and is planning to address a number of issues with regional partners including illegal migration. The United States' delegation is being led by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who will find that Caribbean governments have their own concerns about U.S.-Caribbean relations. Ahead of Wednesday's opening, Ramdin said he would like to 'focus on the critical issues which are currently playing out in the hemisphere.' 'Haiti is foremost, but also electoral processes, democracy, human rights issues,' he said. 'I hope that Antigua and Barbuda will not only demonstrate a… constructive-forward looking agenda, so we hope to set a tone for that here.' Ramdin acknowledged that for a country the size of Antigua to host such a gathering 'is no small feat.' Antigua is among four countries in the Eastern Caribbean at risk of being placed on a new travel ban by the Trump administration, the Miami Herald previously reported. Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela were added to travel ban list last month. While new reports have suggested that the four Eastern Caribbean countries may be on a new list of 36 additional nations due to their participation in programs that make it easy for investors to become citizens, there are concerns that the administration is using the program to pressure the Caribbean nations to serve as third countries for undocumented migrants expelled from the U.S. During a recent meeting with foreign ministers from Antigua, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia, U.S. State Department officials refused to confirm press reports about the proposed travel ban. However, an official confirmed that the United States is assessing immigration matters and is particularly concerned about the Citizenship by Investment programs, which allow foreign investors to obtain passports. The 55th regular session of the OAS general assembly is taking place at a critical time for the agency, which continues to be dogged by questions over it relevancy amid serious governance issues in the hemisphere. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has suggested that the OAS lead the security response in Haiti, where an underfunded security mission led by Kenya has been unable to stem gang violence. The violence has led to a record number of people having to flee their homes, now estimated by the United Nations at 1. 3 million. Wednesday marked a year since the first contingent of about 200 Kenyan police officers arrived in Port-au-Prince.
