Two thousand ten may be remembered as the year of nature’s wrath in parts of Latin America. Nearly a year after an earthquake struck the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, the country has been slow to recover—that being true even before a cholera outbreak arrested parts of the country beginning in October; at least 2591 have died from the illness to date. Recent elections in the country give the impression that the mend is a long way off.
Other nations have not seen their troubles compound so dramatically, but natural disasters have still stung. Torrential rains from hurricanes caused massive flooding in Central America this summer; more recently, Colombia and Venezuela have suffered from flash foods. A much more powerful earthquake than the one that crippled Haiti hit Chile on February 27, its aftershocks rattling the capital as President Sabastian Pinera was being sworn in.
Then there was the violence. 2010 was the most violent in Mexico’s drug war, marring its bicentennial grito for independence day. Surging drug violence in Rio de Janeiro was met with a wide scale crackdown in the city’s favellas at the hands of heavily armed police in recent months. Yet the most violent city in the Americas is not Juarez or Rio, it is Caracas.
Undoubtedly the most unexpected event was finding 33 miners alive 17 days after a collapse at the San Jose mine left them in the dark half a mile under the ground. Two months later they were all rescued alive, in good shape, and in astonishingly high spirits.
For their inspiring fortitude “los 33” are also the persons of the year. Once out of the mine, they have made big plans. One miner, Edison Pena, ran the NYC marathon less than a month after emerging from the mine. Five of the miners made plans to marry after their rescue.
What’s in the tealeaves for 2011? Growth across Latin America is likely to slow from its currently level. ECLA recently published a forecast shaving the region’s growth down from 6% this year to 4.2% in the next, based on uncertainty in international markets. Mildly positive political trends are also likely to continue.
Pragmatic governance in most parts of the region—Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and in smaller nations—is a hopeful, albeit unsurprising, sign. Venezuela, now under rule by decree, will be an exception; Chávez’s acolytes in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua could possibly follow suit.
All told, Latin America seems to be on better footing in December than it was in, say, March. And there is plenty to look forward to in the New Year.
