The top story from the Americas in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times this morning is the death of former Argentine President Raúl Alfonsín. The 82-year-old who governed Argentina from 1983 to 1989 died of lung cancer Tuesday at his Buenos Aires home. The NYT writes that Alfonsín was a passionate spokesperson for human rights whose presidency symbolized the return to democracy in the Southern Cone after an era of military dictatorships. He won praise from many human rights advocates for first forming a private organization called the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights which criticized the military junta and the paramilitary groups they formed. He later became well-known for prosecuting the military leaders who preceded him in office. However, after a failed military rebellion in 1987, Mr. Alfonsín and congressional leaders were forced to enact legislation halting most of the investigations and trials. The legislation was not repealed until 2005 when investigations and prosecutions were once again restarted. An AP story on Alfonsín in the WaPo adds that, besides his daring decision to bring to trial the leaders of the dictatorship, an economic collapse that made him hand over power to his successor six months early also defined his presidency. And the LAT notes that Mr. Alfonsín was a tireless advocate of Mercosur, the Latin American trade bloc. He also had backed a law legalizing divorce.
In the Wall Street Journal today, a report on the global recession and Mexico says that Mexican President Felipe Calderon has indicated he is willing to open a credit line of $30 billion to $40 billion with the International Monetary Fund. This decision would be the first time in nearly a decade that Mexico has borrowed from the multilateral lending organization. The country ended its last IMF debt in 2000 with a single $3 billion payment made five years ahead of schedule. According to the WSJ, the IMF, scorned throughout much of Latin America for bullying poor countries into following strict fiscal guidelines, approved a reform that establishes a flexible credit line loan program for fundamentally solid developing countries in order to attract new borrowers. Mr. Calderon said that Mexico would not necessarily have to exercise the credit line, but he indicated that “it would be very useful to have that money available” if it were needed in the future.
And, the lead story on the region in the Miami Herald says that Cuba will likely be a central topic at the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly as more Latin American leaders push for the country’s inclusion into hemispheric organizations. Most recently, OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, said the multilateral organization should take steps to readmit Cuba, who was expelled in 1962. In an interview with the MH, the ambassador of Trinidad to the U.S., Glenda Patricia Morean-Phillip, said Cuba may not be on the official agenda, but “it’s certainly on everyone's lips.” Trinidad’s Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, met with Raúl Castro on Sunday in Cuba during a medical checkup on the island. The prime minister had a cancerous left kidney removed in Cuba last December and also previously had pacemaker surgery there.
More in the NYT on the issue of Cuba where an AP report says a bipartisan group of Senators announced Tuesday that they will advocate an end to the travel ban to Cuba. The group, which includes Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chris Dodd (D-CT), and Mike Enzi (R-WY), say their proposal to allow travel should be a first step toward breaking down economic and trade barriers between the two countries. Reps. Bill Delahunt (D-MA). and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). have an identical bill in the House with 120 co-sponsors. Supporters stressed that Cuba is the only country in the world to which the United States bans travel, and there are a very few exceptions. The LAT also has a piece on this, adding that a 2002 study by a Washington, D.C-based consulting firm says the removal of travel limits would bring about 3 million Americans to Cuba each year, producing between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion per year in business and creating as many as 23,000 jobs.
Also, an AP piece in the NYT says police in Northern Mexico have captured gang members that allegedly stole oil from state-controlled pipelines and smuggled it to across the border to U.S. refineries. The Federal police commissioner says the gang made protection payments to the Gulf drug cartel and its group of hit-men, the Zetas. According to the AP, prosecutors have frozen 149 bank accounts and detected bank transfers of over $46 million connected to the activities in which the oil was smuggled to the U.S. in tanker trucks with falsified import documentation.
The WSJ reports in a brief story that the U.S. will stand for election to one of three open seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council this year as part of President Obama’s “new era of engagement.” The 47-member Human Rights Council was established in 2006 to replace the 1946 U.N. Human Rights Commission, which had become discredited after some members blocked debate over their own internal human rights records. However, the U.S., with Israel, the Marshall Islands, and Palau, were the only countries who voted against the creation of the Human Rights Council in 2007, says the WSJ.
And, in additional news in the MH, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has his opinion piece on U.S.-Mexico border cooperation, first published in the LAT, reprinted. Also, an AP report in the MH from Guatemala says a drug gang operating in the country was responsible for the murder of 15 Nicaraguans and one Dutch man aboard a bus in November. U.N. anti-crime commissioner Carlos Castresana, aiding Guatemalan police in the investigation, said three of the ten suspects are former police officers. The drug gang was apparently looking for a rival cartel’s drug shipment when they stopped the bus in eastern Guatemala.
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