In the New York Times and LA Times over the weekend, both papers report from Mexico on a mysterious prison break in the northern state of Zacatecas early Saturday morning. The initial NYT story said armed men dressed as federal police freed up to 53 inmates, many of whom are allies of the powerful Gulf cartel. The armed men pretended to be carrying out an authorized inmate transfer, but upon entering the prison facilities, they subdued on-duty prison guards and completed their jail break. The paper argued the jail break was a great embarrassment to the government of Felipe Calderon and illustrated the penetrability of key Mexican institutions. The LAT reports this morning that Mexican authorities now believe the operation was an inside job. Zacatecas Governor Amalia Garcia said the prison warden and two top guards had already been arrested, and an additional 40 guards were being questioned. “It is clear to us that this was perfectly planned” and that guards were bought off, Garcia remarked Sunday. Video footage shows the ease with which a convoy of 17 vehicles and around 30 armed men, backed by a helicopter, arrived near the prison and began their mission. Authorities noted that the use of a helicopter was particularly worrisome as they are “not common in the Zacatecas area.”
The Washington Post writes about Colombia with a piece which examines the scandals surrounding current Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The paper says that the inspector general's office announced Friday “an investigation against three of President Álvaro Uribe's closest advisers and three former officials of the Department of Administrative Security, or DAS, the intelligence service that answers to the president.” The Colombian government has called surveillance of journalists, judges, and politicians the “work of rogue DAS agents,” but many, including Colombian daily El Tiempo, have questioned how the agency could have acted against Uribe's wishes when he controls it. The scandals come as Uribe ponders a run for a third term—a move that would require a constitutional amendment. At the same time, the U.S. is in the midst of examining its own aid policy for Colombia. According to Myles Frechette, a former U.S. ambassador in Bogota, recent events in Colombia may lead to a curtailing of such aid.
From the Wall Street Journal this morning, a report on the growing relationship between Brazil and China in the energy sector. The paper says that South America’s largest economy has turned to the Chinese in a tight global credit market, offering secure commodity supplies to its Asian partner in return. Brazilian President Lula da Silva arrives in Beijing today where the two countries are expected to sign just such a deal, reported to include a $10 billion loan from the Chinese in exchange for as many as 200,000 barrels per day. Discussing why such discussions were not occurring with the U.S., Sergio Gabrielli, chief executive of state oil giant Petrobras, said “The U.S. has a problem. There isn't someone in the U.S. government that we can sit down with and have the kinds of discussions we're having with the Chinese.” According to the WSJ, by dealing directly with governments in oil-supplier nations, China can use its wealth to reduce the role of big oil companies -- the traditional intermediaries between oil producers and oil consumers. “What you are seeing is the new geopolitics of oil, where deals start from a political understanding and cut out the international oil companies,” says Roger Diwan, an oil analyst.
And the Miami Herald reports on the underreported dengue fever epidemic that has hit hundreds of thousands in South America. Reporting from Bolivia, the MH says this year’s dengue outbreak is “one of the worst viral epidemics on record” with over 70 individuals dead already. In Bolivia, 55,000 cases are suspected in the eastern and southern lowlands, with 25 fatalities. Almost 150,000 cases have been detected in Brazil, 4,000 cases in Paraguay, and 13,000 in Argentina this year while in 2008, more than one million cases of dengue were reported in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 554 total deaths, according to the Pan American Health Organization. Experts say the biggest cause of the upsurge in dengue in urban areas is the reproduction of mosquitoes in standing water. And so, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, a daylong campaign in March had sanitation, civic and health workers going door to door throughout this city of 1.5 million in an attempt to get people to rid their properties of water-bearing receptacles where mosquitoes thrive.
In other news, the WaPo also writes on how potentially enormous oil fields off the coast of Cuba could help thaw trade relations between the island and the U.S. The paper says the estimated 20 billion barrels of oil in Cuban waters could turn Cuba into the “Qatar of the Caribbean.” And, according to the report, “the national security, energy and economic benefits of Cuban crude may make it a powerful incentive for change.” At a House subcommittee hearing last month, Jorge Pinón of the Brookings Institution said “American oil and oil equipment and service companies have the capital, technology and operational know-how to explore, produce and refine in a safe and responsible manner Cuba's potential oil and natural gas reserves. Yet they remain on the sidelines because of our almost five-decade-old unilateral political and economic embargo.”
Also in the WaPo, an AP report says three police officers and two other men were arrested on suspicion of working for a drug cartel in central Mexico. Among the arrested were the head of the Morelos police vehicle recovery unit, who was allegedly selling stolen cars and auto parts to the cartel, and a former state police officer suspected as doubling as a drug cartel hit man.
The AP also writes on John McCain’s speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting over the weekend. The Senator argued that the drug war in Mexico should not be used as an excuse to try to restrict American gun rights. “It should be noted that any effort to restrict gun ownership in the U.S. will not stop Mexican cartels from acquiring guns and ammunition from other countries,” Sen. McCain remarked Friday.
In the NYT, an AP report updates the tenuous situation in Guatemala, writing that thousands of Guatemalans protested on Sunday to demand that the president resign over accusations that he ordered a lawyer killed. Dressed in white, most of the protestors were from the middle and upper classes that make up the bulk of the political opposition to Mr. Colom. Meanwhile, in a counter-demonstration, supporters of President Álvaro Colom—many farmers from the countryside and workers who have benefited from his social programs—also came out to back the Guatemalan government.
Finally two opinions. In the WSJ, Mary Anastasia O’Grady offers her thoughts on the situation in Guatemala from a different angle, writing about the ProReforma project in the country which “seeks to amend the constitution so that individual rights trump ‘interests,’ be they general or special.” According to O’Grady, “chief among the rights ProReforma seeks to restore are property and contractual rights,” arguing that the push of international development experts to spend scarce government resources on social programs has starved law enforcement and the judiciary. And in an LAT editorial the paper says the “war on drugs” is over as the Obama administration moves to “demilitarize” U.S. drug policy. Writing on recent statements by Gil Kerlikowske, the LAT says the new drug czar’s “sensible pronouncements inspire hope that the administration is moving toward a more rational approach to drug.”
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