Colombia Sends Troops Into Cúcuta as Bukele Defends Haiti Mission and Cuba’s Grid Falters

Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella ordered troops into the border city of Cúcuta on October 29, handing the army and national police control of security across the metropolitan area after a mayoral hopeful was killed and a bomb went off near the international bridge to Venezuela. “I have ordered the immediate militarization of Cúcuta. That militarization will be temporary,” he said, according to El Nacional (translated).

Key figures: 2,000+ salvadoran troops deployed to haiti · 1,990 MW cuba’s forecast maximum outage friday · 19 nations at the anti-cartel forum in santo domingo

Why it matters: from Colombia’s border with Venezuela to the streets of Port-au-Prince, governments across the Americas are turning to soldiers to handle security crises, while Washington is rallying the region against drug cartels and Cuba’s power grid keeps failing.

Violence on the border

The order followed the killing on October 26 of Miguel Castellanos Serrano, a retired police major who hoped to become mayor, and an explosion on October 27 near the international bridge that wounded four civilians and two police officers, El Nacional reported. A security push called Operation Esparta is due to start on November 3.

Across the border, Venezuela’s interim government reshuffled its diplomats. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez named Oliver Blanco, until now deputy minister for Europe and North America, as foreign minister, replacing Félix Plasencia, who moves to the presidency’s international affairs office with the task of recovering Venezuela’s gold held at the Bank of England, Infobae reported. Blanco promised diplomacy that produces “concrete results” (translated).

Opposition leader María Corina Machado, in her first news conference since returning to Venezuela on October 25, said a negotiated, complete transition was “the best opportunity the regime has today” and would mean guarantees for those who help bring it about, El Nacional reported (translated). She also called for an independent truth commission. Portugal’s foreign minister said four Portuguese citizens held in Venezuela are political prisoners, which Caracas denies, AFP reported.

A rescue mission in Haiti

In Haiti, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said on October 29 that his deployment of more than 2,000 troops, including special forces, is in its final phase, El Nacional reported. The mission is searching for four Salvadoran military aviation technicians of the Gang Suppression Force who have been missing since an October 18 ambush outside Port-au-Prince. Bukele said the operation “is not an invasion” (translated) and denied reports that the technicians’ remains had been identified. It is the largest foreign contingent sent to Haiti since the UN stabilization mission ended in 2017, and Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé’s government has voiced reservations about its scope.

Washington’s cartel coalition

The United States is trying to knit these fights together. Ministers and defense chiefs from 19 Western Hemisphere nations met in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on October 27 for the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition forum, working on a campaign plan and a governance charter for shared intelligence and combined operations, US Southern Command said. “Make no mistake about the nature of our enemy. Transnational cartels are violent extremist organizations,” said Eric Geressy, senior adviser to the secretary of war for strategy, who called the cartels “the al-Qaida and ISIS of the Western Hemisphere.”

Cuba’s darkening grid

In Cuba, the national utility forecast a maximum outage of 1,990 megawatts at Friday’s evening peak, 50 megawatts more than its forecast a day earlier, with 790 megawatts available against expected demand of 2,800, according to the Unión Eléctrica report relayed by CiberCuba. In Havana, one circuit in Arroyo Naranjo had been without power for 64 hours by early morning. Our report on the UN vote on the US embargo of Cuba covers the diplomatic backdrop.

By the numbers

Cuba’s available generation covers only about 28% of expected peak demand (790 of 2,800 megawatts), a TBR calculation from the utility’s figures. Geressy said Operation Southern Spear cut drug-trafficking sea corridors by 64% in the western Caribbean, 58% in the eastern Caribbean and 40% across the Galápagos route, according to Southern Command; those are US government figures, not independent counts.

Brazil and what comes next

In Brazil, the owner of Argentine charter company Baires Fly said a US-based broker paid $150,000 from a US bank account for the jet that flew Flávio Bolsonaro to Miami, El Nacional reported, a follow-up to our story on Bolsonaro’s arrival in Miami. A g1 column citing unnamed officials said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government wants to avoid a crisis with Washington over the flight, and that Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira may meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the G20 in Atlanta, g1 reported. Watch the start of Operation Esparta on November 3, whether El Salvador finds its missing personnel and winds down its Haiti deployment, and whether the cartel coalition adopts its plan.

Sources

• El Nacional: Militarizan Cúcuta tras el homicidio de candidato a la alcaldía y el atentado en la frontera con Venezuela
• Infobae: El nuevo canciller de Venezuela prometió una diplomacia que produzca “resultados concretos”
• El Nacional: María Corina Machado ofrece garantías a quienes faciliten la transición democrática
• El Nacional: Gobierno de Portugal asegura que hay cuatro connacionales presos políticos en Venezuela
• El Nacional: Bukele defiende el despliegue de más de 2.000 tropas en Haití y niega que la misión de rescate constituya una invasión
• US Department of War: Western Hemisphere Nations Meet to Advance Anti-Cartel Campaign Plan
• CiberCuba: Apagones en Cuba: afectación prevista de 1.990 MW | 30 oct 2026
• US Department of War: Western Hemisphere Nations Meet to Advance Anti-Cartel Campaign Plan
• El Nacional: El propietario de la compañía aérea confirma que el vuelo de huida de Flávio Bolsonaro fue contratado desde EE UU
• g1: Governo Lula não quer transformar em crise ajuda da Casa Branca para fuga de Flávio Bolsonaro

Additional sources

• El Nacional: government ends measures against El Nacional and La Patilla
• g1: US asked Flávio Bolsonaro to remove 'president-elect' phrase
• Naharnet: Rubio hosts G20 ministers in Atlanta