The top stories from the Americas in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal over the weekend deal with the forthcoming U.S. loosening of travel restrictions to Cuba. According to the NYT, an administration official said Saturday that President Obama will abandon long-standing restrictions on family travel and remittances ahead of the Fifth Summit of the Americas, scheduled to begin April17. The unnamed official added that the precise details of the plan are still being worked out, and the paper writes that the president is not expected to call for the lifting of the trade embargo on Cuba—an action which would require Congressional approval. The WSJ, who broke the story, reports that in 2004, President George W. Bush tightened the rules on family travel, allowing trips just once every three years, and narrowing the definition of who qualified as family. The paper says sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and grandparents qualified, but uncles, aunts and cousins did not. In a separate article, a NYT piece on political happenings inside Cuba says that a government shakeup that led to the recent removal of a half-dozen top Cuban officials has not yet brought political reform, but rather “politics and decision-making are likely to remain as centralized and tightly controlled as they were under his [Raúl Castro’s] brother.” Minor changes have been seen in the country’s education and healthcare system with the younger Castro trying to get retired teachers to return to work while also making sure that foreign medical programs do not leave parts of the island without medical care. And, finally, a Reuters article in the NYT says that former Cuban president Fidel Castro has praised U.S. Senator Richard Lugar for calling for a new U.S. policy of engagement with the communist-led island. In a column published on the internet, Castro wrote that Lugar has "his feet on the ground" and does not fear that he will be called “soft or pro-socialist” in making the argument that the measures of the United States against Cuba, throughout almost half a century, constitute a total failure.”
From the Washington Post, two articles on drugs, border violence and Mexico over the weekend. The paper writes that after pledging $1.4 billion to help fight drug trafficking in Mexico through the Mérida Initiative last year, the U.S. has spent almost nothing. According to the WaPo, with the first tranche of $400 million long ago appropriated for Mexico, just two small projects have been completed-- the delivery of high-speed computer servers in December and an arms-trafficking workshop attended by senior U.S. officials at a Mexican resort last week. U.S. officials acknowledged that about $7 million from the aid package has been spent on administrative items, and say a $50 million surveillance plane and five rapid-response helicopters, may take as long as two years to deliver to their Mexican counterparts. The monies provided under Merida Initiative are 10 times as large as any previous American anti-drug assistance package to Mexico, and the Mexican government will receive about $116.5 million in foreign military financing under the first installment of Merida—the fifth largest amount in any State Department military financing program. In a separate article, the WaPo interviews Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard about drug laws, border violence, and the increasingly creative ways traffickers are getting drugs into the U.S. And an opinion piece by two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials calls for an increased U.S. effort in fighting drug cartels and organized crime in Mexico, arguing that the “U.S. strategy should be not just to bolster our borders but to help Mexico establish the rule of law and score a decisive victory against the cartels.”
And the LA Times and Miami Herald both have more reports on the end of the Alberto Fujimori in Peru. A verdict is expected this week in the case, and the LAT writes that on the last day of the trial, “Fujimori portrayed himself as the nation's savior,” saying he was facing a guerrilla group that at one time controlled nearly two-thirds of Peru's territory. The MH adds how Fujimori has claimed that the charges and trial reflect a double standard since his predecessors never faced trial for alleged abuses during their presidencies. In particular, the former Peruvian president identified current President Alan Garcia, who also governed Peru from 1985-1990, and was never charged for massacres allegedly committed during his first term in office.
Also in the NYT, a briefing report on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s visit to Iran says that the two countries will form a development bank to finance projects in their respective countries. The new Bi-National Iranian Venezuelan Bank will be based in Tehran with $100 million of startup capital from each country.
In two additional reports in the WaPo, an opinion piece in the paper by White House correspondent Scott Wilson says that while military strategists have often looked to Iraq as a model for creating a new mission in Afghanistan, Colombia would be a better example from which to learn. In the article the Wilson, a former Colombia and Iraq correspondent for the paper, says: assisted by billions of dollars in U.S. military and development aid, the Colombian government has pushed a Marxist insurgency deep into the jungles where it was born four decades ago. Isn't that what Obama wants to accomplish in Afghanistan? Struggles financed by drug profits, difficult terrain, and a lack of a strong central government are among the similarities Wilson writes. And, a WaPo story from Argentina on the legislative approval last week of the President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s plan to move up the congressional elections by four months, from late October to June 28.
From the MH, a story on the test Obama will face in his Latin American debut at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. The scheduled agenda is expected to include six topics, the MH reports: prosperity, energy, the environment, security, democratic governance and the summit process itself.
Lastly, three more opinion pieces from columnists at the WSJ, LAT, and MH. At the WSJ, Mary O’Grady’s column reacts to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s trip to Medellin, Colombia for the Inter-American Development Bank’s general assembly. As the IAD pledged more aid, she provocatively writes that “Latin America remains poor and backward not despite multilateral “assistance” but, in a large part, because of it,” arguing that more economic liberty, not foreign aid is what the region needs to fight poverty. At the LAT, Gregory Rodriguez writes that the drug war in Mexico will have two little examined effects on immigrants in the U.S. First, it will likely increase anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., and second, as “Mexican newcomers look back at their increasingly dangerous homeland, they will -- consciously or unconsciously -- set down deeper roots in the United States.” And, in the MH, Andres Oppenheimer writes that the push by some U.S. legislators to end travel restrictions to Cuba is not likely to bring democracy to the island. He says the U.S. should end the travel ban but “this should be done based on Americans' rights to freely travel anywhere” and not on “on false assumptions that a flood of U.S. visitors will spark an outcry for democracy on the island.”
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