Latin America Politics General Thread

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"Since coming to power, Bukele has not hesitated to implement despotic measures. On his first day in office, he fired hundreds of public employees and dissolved entire institutions with a single message on Twitter. Over time, he took even bolder steps — like in February 2020, when he entered the Legislative Assembly with soldiers and sat in the chair of the Assembly president as a pressure tactic to get lawmakers to approve a loan to fund his security strategy."

Later, in 2021, after winning an absolute majority in Congress, Bukele dealt a blow to the Supreme Court of Justice and handpicked judges who later approved his reelection bid, despite it being prohibited by the Constitution. He also removed the attorney general who was investigating his negotiations with the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, and forced prosecutors to flee the country. That same year, he launched a purge of the judiciary to install judges aligned with his agenda.

But the move that most accelerated his global image as an authoritarian was the implementation of the state of emergency — a measure allowed by El Salvador’s Constitution in cases of natural disaster or national emergency, and intended to last one month. Bukele has renewed this measure more than 36 times."

TAKING NOTES IN DC

"In mid-March, El Salvador began a prison agreement with Donald Trump’s administration to hold undocumented immigrants in its maximum-security prison, CECOT.

At first, Bukele claimed they were criminals, but later, U.S. authorities revealed that many of the people sent on the first flight were simply migrants whose only offense was entering the United States without papers. It was later revealed that Bukele’s real motivation behind the agreement was to bring back nine gang leaders, allegedly to prevent them from testifying in a New York court about his secret deals with them. The agreement significantly damaged Bukele’s image, to which he responded by attacking the media and humanitarian organizations."
 
Here's a little interesting tidbit. The two countries spending the most on their basketball programs are Nicaragua and El Salvador. They both see sport in general and basketball in particular as a means of circus for the masses.

Nicaragua brought in a coach from Puerto Rico, has funneled massive amounts of money towards nationalizing players and paying foreigners to play in their domestic league. They will be hosting the American this August which is for the top 16 teams in the Americas...that event will easily cost them half a million dollars (and no they will not be recouping the money from the gate). They classified by virtue of being host. When you go to their national team games in Nicaragua the court is ringed by Juventud Sandinista members. Their annual budget is about $1.3 million dollars.
El Salvador doesn't have the athletes to compete at the same level as Nicaragua. They also have foreign coaches for their teams with nice deals. They have built out their facilities...really nice practice court, totally refiurbished national gym. They have hosted three different home events in an attempt to give their national teams home court advantages (my CR team is undefeated there). Their women's team has done better, classifying for the women's Americas. Their budget? About $800k.

The budget for the CR basketball federation? $60K per year. Panama which is actually good at basketball? About $200k.
 
Is Nicaragua planning on building a program around Norchad Omier then?

I attended a number of basketball games at the "Central American Games of Peace" back in the late 1980s in Guatemala. In those days it seemed to me that basketball was considered more of a women's game...and there were some pretty good women players to my eye across the region.

I played a few games in the Guatemala City league around that same time...pretty rough hoops..."Que Mula!" But as time went by, especially with the rise of the Dream Team, Jordan, Bird, and Magic in particular it seemed to me that the game became more and more associated with men. I also played in a couple of leagues outside of the capital in the early 1990s. I'm 5-10 and was, for the first time in my life called upon to rebound. There was a guy playing the that league...6-5, who had played at Whittier College in CA who completely dominated even the taller Guatemalans (I have a Guatemalan friend who is 6-6 but was very slight and pretty easily pushed around). Only one guy on my team...actually named "Don Bosco"...could dunk.
 
That was probably because Guatemala has only been good on the women's side.

They've been building around Nomier for the last four years. They have a handful of prospects in schools in South Florida. This Americup will be their crowning achievement. The guy who runs their basketball program was Rosario's money man; he hired hit squads back in the 2018 uprising.
 
Yeah...that makes sense. I tended bar there for a while and the lady who owned the place always said that she had been an All-Guatemala basketball player. I saw her play in an old-timers game and tend to believe her. She also claimed to be the country's only licensed female boxing referee. Her brother had been a middleweight boxer there and her husband (disappeared by the Right-Wing Military) a goalie on the national futbol team. A very athletic family to say the least.

A young woman named Lisa Garcia was a legend in those days...I saw plenty of Mayan women hoopsters burning up the nets from downtown. I always chalked it up to them sort of inventing the game.
 
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