5 de la Mañana : March 31, 2009

The top story from the Americas in the New York Times this morning is from Haiti where the paper writes that the international community is trying to make the country exhibit A on the need to maintain foreign aid giving despite budget limitations. The World Bank says about 46 million more people can be expected to fall into poverty worldwide this year amid the largest decline in global trade in 80 years. Haiti is amongst the most vulnerable after a year of food riots that toppled the government and a series of hurricanes that killed hundreds and destroyed the economy. According to the NYT, the UN has commissioned experts like development expert Paul Collier to help find solutions, and in a recent visit to the island Dr. Collier, famous for his book The Bottom Billion, argued that the economic downturn might prove the perfect moment for Haiti to sell more exports like T-shirts and mangoes to Americans. However, there is some criticism that Mr. Collier’s basic recommendation involves turning Haiti into a sweatshop for American consumers, with workers paid $5 per day or less. Others say any attempt at development will not be sustainable until a corrupt judicial system, weak land tenure laws, and wildly inefficient ports are rebuilt.

The LA Times reports on yesterday’s Senate Foreign Relations field hearing in El Paso, Texas, where law enforcement officials told a congressional panel that the United States does not need to send troops to the border in response to Mexico's drug war. Officials added that Mexico is also not in danger of becoming a failed state. Rather, expert witnesses argued that the U.S. government must increase aid to Mexico and push to reform institutions whose weaknesses had been exposed by the current struggle with drug cartels. Worries about drug violence spillover were also quelled by El Paso Dist. Atty. Jaime Esparza who said that trafficking rivalries and infighting had little effect on crime in U.S. border towns. During the bloody 14 months in Juarez, El Paso had just 20 homicides, according to Esparza, who added that “the rhetoric has been escalated and exaggerated."

In the Miami Herald has a report this morning on U.S. worries about the falling amount of money being sent back to Central America in the form of remittances. At a recent press conference with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon said the United States is working through the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to ensure Central American governments have access to credit to pay for social programs. Vice President Joe Biden also discussed the issue with Central American leaders during his visit to the region. According to the MH, World Bank economists project that monthly remittances to Central America from migrants in the United States will fall 10 to 15 percent this year, the first annual decline since the bank began tracking the funds. In Guatemala, remittances decreased 11.4%, to $282 million, in February, compared to one year earlier while neighboring El Salvador saw remittances drop 8.4% in January to $252 million. Fewer jobs in construction, restaurants, landscaping and farming in the United States are seen as a primary reason for the drop.

In other news, the BBC has a short piece on an exclusive interview with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Calderon warns in the interview that corruption among American officials may be making it harder to deal with drug-trafficking between Mexico and the U.S., saying it was impossible to smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States without the complicity of some American authorities. Calderon added that violence in the border city of Juarez had fallen by 73% in the month since he sent 7,000 extra troops there, but some analysts in Mexico City point out that there was also a fall in the violence in Juarez last year when he sent a first detachment of troops in, but it quickly rose again.

And, The Financial Times writes on the growing role of China in Latin America, reporting that China and Argentina have agreed to a $10.24 billion currency swap. The deal, signed at an Inter-American Development Bank meeting in Colombia, will allow China to receive renminbi instead of dollars for its exports to the Latin American country. Many economists see the move as one piece in China’s attempt to promote wider international use of the renminbi, starting with making it more acceptable for trade and aiming at establishing it as a reserve currency in Asia, something that would also enhance China’s political clout, says the FT.

More in the NYT, where an AP report on Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Central America says the VP urged leaders to be patient with U.S. immigration laws as they will not change in the short-term amid the U.S. economic downturn. Many Central American leaders have been frustrated with the record pace of deportations. About 80,000 Central Americans were deported from the U.S. in 2008. The Vice President added that anti-drug aid for Central America under the Merida Initiative will be increased to $100 million in 2009 from $65 million in 2008.

A NYT briefing on U.S.-Mexico cooperation around drug violence quotes Mexican president Felipe Calderon who said the sharing of intelligence between the two countries will continue but made clear that American forces will not be conducting raids with their Mexican counterparts on Mexican soil.

And, another AP story in the NYT reports that on the last day of closing arguments in the 15-month trial of former president Alberto Fujimori in Peru, the defense asked how a court could convict the ex-president of murder and kidnapping if Peru's current president, Alan Garcia, was never charged for human rights abuses allegedly committed during his first term in office two decades ago. Prosecutors allege that Fujimori and his spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos fought terror with terror during a conflict in which 70,000 Peruvians were killed. For his part, current president Alan Garcia, who also headed the Peruvian government from 1985-1990, was found to be politically -- not criminally -- responsible for military abuses during his presidency, according to a government-appointed Truth Commission.

Finally, two more notes from the MH. First, the paper has more on Vice President Biden’s visit to Central America, reporting that the possibility of having Costa Rican President Oscar Arias act as a spokesman for the region appeared to be rejected by Biden. The U.S. Vice President said the U.S. wants “direct, immediate and personal contact with each of the leaders and each of the countries in the region.”

And, an AP report from Mexico in the MH says federal Public Safety Department officials have announced the opening of a "super-maximum" security prison to hold Mexico's most dangerous criminals in Veracruz state. Another prison will be built in Sinaloa state featuring a special section for kidnappers.

5 de la Mañana: March 28-30, 2009

The top story from the Americas in the New York Times this morning is from Mexico where a report examines how the very institutions that are supposed to be fighting Mexican drug cartels are often infiltrated by drug gangs and drug money. The story calls the fact that Mexico cannot rely on its police, courts, prison, or army the “central paradox in the country’s ambitious and bloody assault on the drug cartels.” According to the NYT, over the past year, the country’s top organized crime prosecutor has been arrested for receiving cartel cash, as was the director of Interpol in Mexico. And the cartels were even able to slip a mole inside the United States Embassy while those who reject bribes are often killed by the drug gangs. The piece notes that the spike in violence that has plagued Mexico recently has its origins in President Felipe Calderon’s 2006 presidential campaign when the then candidate received threats on his life from drug cartels, fueling his personal outrage, according to officials close to him. In an oft-repeated critique of Mr. Calderon’s approach to the drug war, Javier Valdez, a Sinaloa journalist says, “Calderon took a stick and whacked the beehive.”

From the Washington Post, a piece on U.S. policy toward Cuba says that at a news conference scheduled for Tuesday an historic piece of legislation that would end the travel ban to Cuba will be launched. An array of senators and interest groups -- including Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND); Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT); Richard G. Lugar (R-IN.), the top ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Human Rights Watch will all be present at the press conference. According to the WaPo, Obama is expected to further loosen remaining travel restrictions for all Americans by the time he goes to the April 17-19 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. However, a handful of Cuban Americans in the U.S. Senate, the most vocal of whom has been Robert Menendez (D-NJ), have said they will continue to use all available tools to preserve U.S. sanctions until political conditions change in Cuba.

The Wall Street Journal reports on Venezuela whose black market for U.S. dollars was all but closed on Friday after the arrest of a Florida financial firm owner on money laundering charges. According to the WSJ, the firm, Rosemont Finance Corp., serves as a key U.S. clearing house for dozens of black-market brokerages that exploit loopholes to sell dollars, despite an official Venezuelan ban on private firms buying and selling currency at unofficial rates. The black market is a crucial element of Venezuela’s financial system and counts giants such as state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA among its key players. The WSJ writes that if the market remains shut down for long, it could add to problems in Venezuela's economy. The firm’s owner, Rama K. Vyasulu, was arrested on Wednesday after being indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston on charges of laundering $900,000 in drug profits.

The LA Times publishes an opinion piece on the war against drug cartels in Mexico by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, this morning. The SFRC today holds a field hearing in El Paso, Texas, to hear from U.S. and Mexican officials about ways to develop a better joint response to the border violence. And Sen. Kerry writes that while Mexico is not the failed state that some pundits have warned about, the crisis is undeniable. He says “it cannot be addressed without the United States and Mexico working together to combat crimes that respect no border.” Among the forms of cooperation offered by Sen. Kerry are: 1. Mexico allowing the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to examine every gun seized to identify and shut down the sellers, 2. New U.S. efforts to shut down demand for drugs on this side of the border 3. Better intelligence-sharing to alert both sides to the movement of drugs, arms and cash in both directions, 4. More extensive use of intelligence resources to develop a better strategic picture of how the cartels operate in the U.S., and 5. U.S. ratification of the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Weapons and Explosives.

And the Miami Herald has a report this morning from Guatemala where a new archive of national police records has been opened and requests for information from families and researchers are now being accepted. The nearly 80,000 documents discovered by accident in 2005, deal primarily with the most violent years of civil war in Guatemala, 1975-1985. The National Police collaborated closely with the army pursuing people suspected of being involved in “communist activities,” and according to the Guatemalan truth commission, the police were responsible for torture, arbitrary execution and forced disappearance of victims. Already documents found in the archive helped lead to the arrest earlier this month of two former National Police officers accused of participating in the forced disappearance of student and union activist, Edgar Fernando García, in 1984. But human rights activists remain in great danger in Guatemala. In a news release, Amnesty International said it “believes attacks (on human rights activists) and threats have been made to intimidate the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office and stop them from carrying out their work.”

Also in the NYT, a story from Brazil examines a new debate over abortion rights after the highly publicized story of a 9 year girl’s rape and pregnancy by her stepfather. Abortion is only legal in Brazil in instances of rape or when the mother’s life is in jeopardy, says the NYT, but there are only 55 centers authorized to perform the procedure in the country. The number of legal abortions of girls ages 10 to 14 more than doubled last year to 49, up from 22 in 2007, the Ministry of Health reported. That number was out of a total of 3,050 legal abortions performed last year in a country of more than 190 million. But the Ministry of Health estimates about one million unsafe or clandestine abortions occur every year. And, currently, anti-abortion advocates, who represent the majority in Brazil’s Congress, are pushing hard to make the current law even tighter, with one proposal requiring that home pregnancy tests carry labels with warnings like “The penalty for abortion is one to three years in prison.”

On the issue of Haitian immigrants, a WaPo editorial this morning supports granting temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians in the United States. The article says TPS would apply only to Haitians in the United States at the time the order is issued, and after four hurricanes destroyed much of the country last year, killing up to 800 people, leaving as many as 1 million homeless and inflicting at least $1 billion in damage -- 15 percent of the country's gross domestic product—Haitians are more than deserving of TPS. Yet, the current U.S. policy is to deport the estimated 30,000 Haitians in this country back to violence and poverty in their own country.

On the global economy, Mary O’Grady writes in her WSJ column this week that political leaders are using public angst about the global economy to nationalize key sectors of the economy. O’Grady writes of happenings in Mexico where the PRI view the economic crisis as “a chance to regain power and again practice the potent politics of economic nationalism.” With the U.S. government’s 36% ownership of Citigroup, and Citi’s ownership of Mexico's Banamex, the U.S. is now part owner of the second-largest Mexican bank. Since Mexico's banking law forbids “foreign entities that exercise governmental functions” from investing or participating in the capital stock in commercial banks, a political battle to “Mexicanize” Banamex has erupted—a temptation O’Grady believes should be resisted.

From the LAT, a piece from Colombia says an assassination plot against Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos was recently thwarted. The plans, apparently hatched by the FARC, included renting a property adjacent to Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos' suburban farm and secreting police uniforms, weapons and motorcycles at the site to facilitate a Holy Week assassination. This was the 11th such scheme uncovered against the minister in less than two years. Santos is a target because he is a front-runner in the 2010 presidential race, and if elected, probably would continue President Alvaro Uribe's hard-line approach to dealing with the FARC. He has received much of the credit for the Colombian armed forces' battlefield successes against the rebels since he became minister in July 2006.

And an LAT piece reports on new water routes for drug and immigrant smuggling as barriers rise along the U.S.-Mexico land border. According to the LAT, more than 310 people have been arrested on suspected smuggling boats since October 2007, more than triple the number from the previous 18-month time period. Additionally, marijuana seizures have also surged, with more than 29 tons seized in the same time frame, a more than tenfold rise from the previous period.

Finally, two pieces from the MH. First, Vice President Joe Biden, speaking in Chile after his visit to Central America, reportedly said the U.S. wants Latin America to play a more active role in organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and he also ruled out lifting the embargo on Cuba. On Cuba, Biden said there was a “need for a transition in our policy, but we all share one thing in common: we think the Cuban people should determine their own fate and that they should be able to live in freedom and with some prospect of economic prosperity.” And, in his Sunday column, Andres Oppenheimer writes that a busy election season is likely to increase political tensions in the hemisphere and make economic recovery occur more slowly. Between 2010 and 2012, there will be 11 presidential elections in the region, including critical contests in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Peru, some of the region's biggest countries. Oppenheimer argues that “if Latin American countries want to join the First World, they will have to do what helps define First World nations: keep elections from translating into economic uncertainty, capital flight and economic chaos.”