In the New York Times this morning, an AP report writes that Alberto Pizango, leader of indigenous groups protesting extractive industries in Peru, has sought asylum in Nicaragua and is currently held up in the Nicaraguan embassy. Protests ended in violence last Friday, leaving dozens dead, and many indigenous activists are now calling the events an act of “genocide” on the part of the Peruvian government. Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega is expected to decide Tuesday on whether or not to grant Pizango asylum. He faces charges of “sedition” in Peru for his part on the demonstrations.
The Miami Herald reports that Cuba made its first public statement Monday regarding its position vis a vis the OAS after last week’s general assembly vote lifted the 1962 ban on Cuban membership in the inter-American body. However, as was largely expected, the Cuban government said the organization was one “with a role and trajectory that Cuba repudiates.” An adviser to the Venezuelan government, a close ally of Cuba, added that Cuba’s decision to remain outside the OAS was not about the OAS but rather is “an assertion of Latin American sovereignty” and “largely symbolic.” The Venezuelan adviser added that ALBA, a regional integration body made up of many left leaning leaders in Latin America, agreed that the OAS is largely “irrelevant” at the current moment. “They [Cuba] are looking for pretexts. Now Cuba is choosing to continue as a pariah in the region,” remarked HRW Americas Director José Miguel Vivcano.
In the LA Times a rather bizarre story of a Mexican national arrested Monday while attempted to smuggle 24 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. from Mexico on his surfboard. U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted the paddler about 200 yards off shore and entered the water to make the arrest. The man, in turn, threw his drug-stuffed duffle bag off his board and into the water as agents approached. The estimated value of the seized drugs was nearly $74,400, and his legal troubles do not end there as the suspect also admitted he was in the U.S. illegally.
Outside the major U.S. papers this morning, two additional reports. First, the Financial Times has a story on UN General Assembly president, Nicaraguan priest Miguel d’Escoto Brockman. The FT writes that d’Escoto’s tenure “cannot come soon enough” for the UN’s “big powers” as Western diplomats “accuse him of abusing his position to pursue his own radical agenda and of bringing the UN into disrepute.” The most recent dispute has erupted over the financial crisis. Last year, the General Assembly was mandated to hold a summit on the crisis (to be held this month), but now some diplomats say d’Escoto is attempting to you use the meeting as a means “redesign the international financial architecture” instead of supporting reform of the IMF, World Bank, and other existing international financial bodies. For his part, Father d’Escoto has accused some Western countries of attempting to sabotage the summit and, specifically, has accused the British Foreign Office of trying to drive a wedge between him and his advisers, who include Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist. Additionally, Fr. D’Escoto has caused controversy in recent years for vocally denouncing Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories and criticizing the US’s record of propping up dictators and its aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. His tenure as GA president ends in September.
And, in Spain’s El País, a report on June 29 elections in Argentina says the issue of drug trafficking has now entered the political race. A principal rival of the Kirchner’s, judge Francisco de Narváez will be called before an Argentine court to explain his alleged relationship with an accused narcotrafficker, the paper writes, just as the opposition candidate appears to be running very close with ex-president Nestor Kirchner. De Naváerz apparently made at least four phone calls to “the king of ephedrine,” trafficker Roberto Segovia in 2004. Segovia is currently in preventive prison.
In other news, the NYT has another report on the Acapulco shoot-out that killed 18 over the weekend. The story leads writing that the “four-hour gun battle…between soldiers and suspected drug traffickers made clear that the popular beach resort has a dark side and that no part of Mexico may be completely immune from the continuing drug war.” Army officials say at least three cartels are operating in the state of Guerrero, including the Beltrán Leyva cartel, La Familia, and the Zetas.
From the MH, a report on Venezuela says some military officials are upset with President Hugo Chávez for a military order he has imposed saying all critical comments against the president must be reported. The paper writes that “officers and soldiers in the Venezuelan army must now report messages considered offensive, critical or contrary to the government, according to a recent official order.” A message circulated by the army’s director of intelligence last month says, “Any military personnel who receives via the Internet, text messaging or other media, electronic mail, offensive messages, criticism or analogies of different natures that are contrary to the system of government presided by our Commander in Chief, Lt. Col. Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, must notify its contents at once to his natural commander or to the intelligence directorate of the National Army.” Rocío San Miguel, an expert on military issues at the NGO Citizen Control in Caracas, said that the message was aimed “at groups of servicemen that need to be pressured in a special way” and has “a classic element of intimidation.”
Finally, three opinions. First, in the MH, Andres Oppenheimer writes that Brazil is making significant in-roads into Central America, an area traditionally considered the “backyard” of Mexico. Oppenheimer says many in the region have jokingly called Brazil a “vegetarian dinosaur” as it slowly increases its economic and political clout in the region. Brazil has joined the Central American Integration System (SICA) -- the Central American governments' economic bloc -- as a “regional observer,” and has said it hopes to join the Central American Economic Integration Bank as an extra-regional partner. Manuel Orozco of the Inter-American Dialogue says Brazil “represents a political balancing point that many Central American leaders are seeking to reach internally” and Oppenheimer says that while he supports Brazil offsetting Venezuelan influence in the region the “bad news is that Brazil's foreign policy is totally self-serving and has shown little interest in defending human rights or abiding by regional commitments for the collective defense of democracy.” Also, in the MH, conservative columnist Carlos Montaner writes a different version of the same article he seems to write every two weeks. He calls the OAS a “militantly anti-Western political family, allied to all the enemies of the interests and values of U.S. society -- Iran, North Korea, Belarus, the Colombian FARC -- convinced that its sacred historic mission is to reclaim the cause betrayed by the decadent European communists when they dissolved the Soviet Union and abandoned the struggle for a more-just planet dominated by Marxist ideas.” And, in the LA Times, New America fellow Andrés Martinez urges Americans to travel to Mexico out of a spirit of “good neighborliness” for a country that has hit some hard times over the last year.
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