Impunity Observer Impunity Observer

Cuban exiles enjoy nostalgia for the homes and times they once knew. Those days are long gone, and they will never return. Honduras is creeping toward the same fate.

Impunity Observer Publisher Fergus Hodgson comments on his article "The Exodus Is Turning Honduras into Cuba" and explains why this exodus will grow exponentially if socialist policies and autocratic trends continue.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ1UdKsAWYQ&t=124s

Read the article: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/04/08/the-exodus-is-turning-honduras-into-cuba/

Read in Spanish: https://www.latribuna.hn/2024/04/07/el-exodo-esta-convirtiendo-a-honduras-en-una-nueva-cuba/

The Impunity Observer podcast is scaling up to a weekly episode and new formats that allow us to get closer to our audience. Our contributor Mauro Echeverría begins this weekly series with a deeper look at one of his investigations.

His latest investigation revealed that a rising number of Chinese citizens are flying to Ecuador, where they begin their journey north. Echeverría discusses how he conducted the research—which included reaching out to three human smugglers and a Google Trends analysis—and his findings.

For him, despite restrictions from the Chinese Communist Party, social media plays a major role in helping Chinese citizens obtain information about zouxian. That is a term coined by Chinese citizens to describe the risky route to the United States by land, much of it on foot.

Read the investigation here: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/03/05/how-chinese-illegals-get-to-united-states/

#ecuador #migration #china

Rosa María Payá, founder of nonprofit Cuba Decide and daughter of assassinated Cuban political dissident Oswaldo Payá, took the floor on the last day of the examination of Cuba by the UN Human Rights Council. Her petition was simple: expel Cuba from the council. A Cuban official responded by attacking her character, but he said nothing in response to her summary of the regime's activities.

The Impunity Observer reached out to Payá to learn firsthand what motivated her speech. In addition to broad and consistent violations of human rights on the island, Payá stressed that Cuba has been an instrumental partner to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine.

Over 2,000 Cuban youth are serving with the Russian front in Ukraine, and the regime forbids young males to leave the island without permission. Moreover, the dictatorship has been echoing Russia Today’s programming—bypassing sanctions—and broadcasting it worldwide.

Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/04/09/cuban-regime-cannot-refute-rosa-maria-paya

Fernando Linares—a Guatemalan lawyer and former congressman—has initiated the legal process to remove the president and 24 congressmen. All belong to President Bernardo Arévalo’s suspended Semilla party. According to Linares, this party has committed numerous illegalities, such as falsely registering more than 8,000 members to qualify for the ballot. He explains that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal should annul the 2023 elections and hold fresh elections in 2024.

For Linares, the 2023 Guatemalan presidential election was a fraud. He contends that the US State Department and the European Union catapulted then unknown Arévalo to qualify and eventually win the electoral runoff. With the fraud, he contends, foreign socialist bureaucrats will have a globalist in office in Guatemala, an otherwise conservative nation.

Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/03/01/fernando-linares-election-results-do-not-pass-smell-test/

Luis Espinosa Goded—a Spanish professor of economics at San Francisco University of Quito, Ecuador—explains how citizens and private businesses will pay a high price for the government's conflict with narcoterrorists. Curfew impositions, reduced mobility, and narco extortion are already some ways in which individuals—rather than the state or the narcos—are suffering from the escalating conflict that has inflamed the nation. 

For Espinosa Goded, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s strategy of a higher value-added tax to purportedly finance the war against narcos hurts citizens instead of criminals. Noboa could have instead tightened government spending elsewhere to free up taxpayer resources. Espinosa Goded highlights that the Ecuadorian economy is in a dire situation, so the tax increase is a blow to businesses and individuals who cannot afford it. 

Show notes: https://impunityobserver.com/2024/02/28/luis-espinosa-goded-ecuadorians-not-criminals-pay-narco-war/

Mario Duarte—co-founder and CEO of DH Global Strategy, a global consulting and lobbying firm—predicts 2024 will be a hectic year worldwide for geopolitics. He believes the Democratic Party is promoting the US border crisis: "the Western Hemisphere appears to be being weaponized to influence the US November elections in the United States."

For Duarte, many illegal migrants cross the US border to get new economic opportunities, but others work together with narcos and terrorists. He adds that developed countries have contributed to the weakening of Third-World countries’ economies by promoting socialist politicians.

Duarte explains why he coined the term Latinists. It refers to the unelected bureaucrats who want to intervene in the decision-making of Third-World countries. He claims these bureaucrats are arrogant because they think they know more than locals and what is best for their nations.

Show notes: