LATAM POLITICS TODAY-AMLO changes strategy to put National Guard under Army

The latest in Latin American politics today: Mexico president changes tack in bid to put National Guard under Army

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has said he will submit a fast-tracked bill to put the military in charge of the National Guard next week, hoping to crack down on violence fueled by organized crime. It came after he noted he did not have the votes for a two-thirds majority in Congress needed for constitutional changes. A fast-tracked bill requires only a simple majority.

“I cannot sit with my arms folded,” he told a news conference, saying he was expediting the move to strengthen public security. Protesters block Peru highway after clashes with police

LIMA – Hundreds of miners blocked a stretch of Peru’s Interoceanic Highway near the border with Brazil after a clash between police and protesters the day before left at least one dead and more than a dozen injured. The protest began in response to alleged abuses committed by police officers during an operation against illegal mining, Peru’s Ombudsman’s office said.

The clashes come as the world’s second largest copper producer faces a wave of social conflicts that have briefly paralyzed the mining sector. Brazil’s Bolsonaro says Petrobras privatization possible next year

BRASILIA – President Jair Bolsonaro said he has authorized his energy minister to consider the privatization of Brazilian oil company Petrobras next year, if re-elected in October. “I believe it could work out well,” Bolsonaro said in a radio interview without giving details of how the state’s controlling stake in the company would be sold.

Bolsonaro began earlier this year to publicly defend privatizing Petrobras after a surge in fuel prices stoked by the war in Ukraine became a hot topic in an election year. Ex-Federal Police detectives criticize Brazil’s ‘authoritarian and illegal’ Supreme Court

RIO DE JANEIRO – A group of retired Federal Police detectives has released a statement accusing members of Brazil’s Supreme Court of using the force to take what they called “authoritarian and illegal measures.” The statement by about 100 ex-officers comes just days after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized a Federal Police raid on wealthy supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro.

According to a report by online news site Metropoles, the businessmen had discussed in WhatsApp groups the virtues of a military coup if the far-right leader lost his upcoming re-election attempt. Brazil’s Lula vows to punish corruption if elected in October

BRASILIA – Former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who spent 19 months in prison on bribery convictions, has promised to crack down on corruption if elected in Brazil’s October election. Lula said he would create new mechanisms to investigate anyone in his government accused of corruption and punish them if proven guilty. (Compiled by Steven Grattan; editing by Chris Reese)

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