Central America. Fox News reports on Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega’s 50 minute speech against past U.S. aggressions in Latin America at the Summit of the Americas last week. President Obama responded to Ortega’s words in his own speech saying: “To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates.”
EFE writes that President Obama offered Central American leaders a proposal to expedite the “temporary worker” policy for agricultural workers during the Summit of the Americas meetings.
And EFE also reports that Nicaraguan first lady Rosario Murillo is considering a run for president as the FSLN candidate in 2011.
Bolivia. Time has a report on the alleged plot to assassinate President Evo Morales. After a shootout that led three suspects dead in Santa Cruz, authorities say they were then led to Santa Cruz's convention grounds, where they found an arsenal of sharp-shooter rifles, grenades, C-4 explosives and other heavy weaponry, along with maps and documents showing that the group the men in the hotel allegedly belonged to had been following caravans of high-ranking government officials.
The Wall Street Journal writes about the identity of the three men killed in the shootout with police and the two men taken into custody.
In The Economist a report on Evo Morales hunger strike which ended last week with congressional passage of an election law.
The AP reports that a top anti-drug official in Bolivia has said that cocaine production is on the rise in Bolivia, with Colombian and Mexican cartels hiring intermediaries to process the locally made coca paste there rather than exporting it. According to the report, the shift mirrors a pattern seen in Peru in the mid-1990s, when anti-drug police said local groups began making cocaine from coca they had previously sent to Colombia for processing.
On U.S.-Bolivian relationships after the Summit, Jim Shultz at the Democracy Center writes: “While most of Morales' Latin American presidential colleagues seemed to be anxious to jump-start a new honeymoon with Obama…Morales seems to be the region’s most reluctant bride,” adding that “there is still a lot of diplomatic work to be done to make the U.S/ Bolivia relationship something different than the battleground it has been for three year.”
Brazil. In Newsweek a piece on the emergence of Brazil as a world power under the leadership of President Lula da Silva. In a recent press conference, Brazil’s trade unionist-turned-president remarked: “Don't you think it's chic that we are now lending the IMF money?” And the magazine writes that “With no manual for becoming a global power, Lula's Brazil seems to be writing one of its own.”
Spain’s El País has a similar assessment of Brazil’s global rise. The report says that the U.S. has traditionally tried to isolate Brazil’s power and influence in the region, but now Brazil, with “experience and force,” has forced the U.S. and others to take note of Brazil’s new role in Latin America and beyond.
And, in The Economist, a piece argues that Brazil’s new leadership is stretching beyond economic matters to the issue of climate change as well. The magazine writes that the governor of Mato Grosso state recently “hosted a conference on developing markets for ecosystem services, with the idea of paying stewards of the forest to keep the trees standing.” While some greens in Brazil are still critical of the market-based incentives for preserving the rainforest, the article argues that “if Brazil gets more enthusiastic about foreigners subscribing to funds to save the forest, these might gradually tip the scales against the chainsaws.”
Chile. The Inter Press Service reports on the going into effect of Chile’s new Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information on Monday. The law, which most agree still has room for improvement, will apply to ministries, regional governments, provincial governorships and municipalities, as well as all other state services, the armed forces, police and public security forces. The information requested must be provided within 20 working days while dissatisfied citizens can appeal to the Transparency Council, an autonomous body under public law created to ensure enforcement of the law.
Meanwhile, the AP reported this week that a retired army general and two other retired officers were indicted in the killing of 14 dissidents in 1973 under dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet—part of the Caravan of Death military operation.
Colombia. At NACLA a report on a “significant about face” of U.S. policy vis a vis Colombia at the Summit of the Americas. Teo Ballvé writes that the change came when Barack Obama promised Colombian President Álvaro Uribe that the White House would work toward helping pass the stalled free trade agreement between the two countries. During Obama's presidential campaign, his opposition to the trade deal was one of the few concrete policy stances he took on Latin America, says Ballvé.
Also, Bloomberg reports that Colombian government will seek a $10.4 billion credit line from the International Monetary Fund. Colombia joined Mexico in seeking help from the IMF under a program it began offering last month for developing countries with “very strong fundamentals, policies and track records of policy implementation.” It is seen as insurance if economic troubles worsen.
Cuba. At the Washington Note, an amusing cartoon on “tearing down the wall” between the U.S. and Cuba.
While a comment by Prof. Helen Yaffe in The Guardian asks: “will the U.S. and others accept the Cuban people's right to be different - to develop an alternative to the western model of consumerism which has led us into global recession and threatens the survival of the planet” after the embargo?
Ecuador. In El País a report that Rafael Correa appears likely to triumph easily in his reelection bid Sunday. A recent poll shows he would obtain 50% of the votes. He only needs 40% to prevent a second round of voting.
Haiti. In Foreign Policy in Focus, Dr. Paul Farmer and Brian Concannon argue that “Haitians are still waiting to see whether the promised change will extend beyond ending the illegal and destructive policies of the last eight years.” They write that Congress still must approve $70 million in aid and debt relief the U.S. committed to Haiti last week and argue that the Obama administration could grant Haiti's request for Temporary Protected Status which allows visitors from fragile countries to remain in the United States and work after their visas have expired.
Mexico. The weekly round-up of stories from Mexico this week:
· On Obama’s pledge to support Mexico in its fight against drug violence, analysis from Robert Pastor and Prof. Allert Brown Court on The Newshour.
· On Mexican reactions to Obama’s visit, Real Clear World writes there is “cautious optimism.”
· On the Mexican military along the U.S.-Mexico border, an AP report that patrols in Juarez will soon end as drug violence has dropped significantly.
· On drug violence, an article in Proceso (reprinted at Narco News) says men who at one time were soldiers are responsible for the most severe attacks against the armed forces in their confrontation with drug trafficking cartels.
· On drug-related killings, Narco News reports that the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) said this week that, as of March 13 of this year it had counted 10,475 executions since the beginning of President Felipe Calderon's term on December 1, 2006.
· On the Merida Initiative, Narco News also calls the plan a “bureaucratic invasion” of Mexico by the U.S. The report says DEA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) offices in Mexico will receive an all-time high of personnel to confront the cartels not only with more resources, but also with more agents.
· On differences between drug aid to Mexico and Plan Colombia, see Bloggings by Boz’s analysis.
· On drug arrests, El País reports that 44 affiliates of the Familia Michoachana drug cartel were arrested this week at a family party.
· On something other than drugs, The Economist writes that Felipe Calderón “has chosen to make the fight to reduce carbon emissions one of the hallmarks of his presidency, at least rhetorically. He wants Mexicans to commit to cutting their own emissions by half by 2050.” And “he has urged the setting up of a global “Green Fund,” which would receive contributions from all but the poorest countries in the world to finance environmentally friendly projects.
· On gun smuggling, Michael Bloomberg writes in the Washington Times that “I have stressed the need for a more targeted and pragmatic approach, one that focuses not on the type of weapon being sold illegally or whether that gun is bound for Mexico, but on the fact that an illegal sale is occurring in the first place…The dirty little secret of Mexican gunrunning is that the drug cartels south of the border and the drug dealers north of it are exploiting the same loose laws.”
· On the Drugs and Democracy talk at the Brookings Institution two weeks ago, Narco News reports.
· On trade, the New York Times reports that the Obama administration has no present plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to add labor and environmental protections, as President Obama vowed to do during his campaign.
· And, finally, on the statistical drop in recent drug violence, see this very useful diagram on trends in violence at Security in Latin America.
Paraguay. The New York Times reports that a second paternity claim has been brought against Paraguayan priest-turned-president, Fernando Lugo.
Peru. CNN reports on the “comback” of Shining Path guerrillas who killed 14 government soldiers in an ambush last month.
EFE reports Antero Flores-Aráoz, Peru’s Defense Minister, says the military will not withdraw in their fight against the Maoist guerrilla group.
Venezuela. A handshake and a gift dominate the news from Venezuela this week. ABC News asks if Obama’s handshake with Hugo Chávez at the Summit of the Americas was a form of outreach or irresponsible overreach.
Meanwhile at The Nation a piece argues that “Barack Obama is no friend of Venezuelan economic and political policies, but Obama follows a political logic that separates human actors from the atrocity or banality of their acts.”
On the book Chávez presented Obama, Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America, Alvaro Vargas Llosa at TNR writes that the book is a relic of dependency theorizing, suggesting that, the “next time Obama meets Chávez he gives him a copy of The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States, by Venezuelan writer Carlos Rangel. Published just four years after The Open Veins of Latin America, it demolishes the ideas that kept the region in its political and economic infancy for so long.”
While Time has a different, perhaps more balance take on the book that is now #2 at Amazon.com, writing it is “well-researched” and “with leftist leaders like Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales assuming power of 21st century Latin American governments, it's important to understand how they think we got here and who they hold responsible. Therefore, Galeano's 1971 book is still worth reading today.”
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