In the New York Times over the weekend, the paper focuses on violent clashes between indigenous protestors and security forces in Peru. On Saturday, it was suspected that over 30 individuals had died in the clashes as security forces tried to regain control of a petroleum facility blocked by indigenous activists fighting extractive industries in the northern Bagua province. Approximately 25 of those killed were believed to be indigenous protestors, according to indigenous leaders while Peruvian Prime Minister Yehude Simon said just 9 Indians were killed. In addition, state officials claimed 22 police officers had been killed. The NYT writes that the violence comes after nearly two months of escalating protests, demanding that President Alan García withdraw decrees that make it easier for companies to carry out major energy and logging projects in the Peruvian Amazon. After the clashes, the state sought the arrest of Alberto Pizango, a Shawi Indian and the leader of Aidesep, an umbrella organization of indigenous groups that had organized many of the protests. But Mr. Pizango, sought on sedition charges, had apparently gone into hiding and was replaced by another leader, Champion Nonimgo. For his part, Ollanta Humala, a nationalist political leader defeated by Mr. García in the most recent presidential elections, has sided with the protesters, forcefully criticizing the use of use of force against the Indians and perhaps raising his profile ahead of the next elections in 2011.
From the Washington Post, the latest on a story that broke Friday about a D.C. couple arrested for allegedly acting as Cuban spies for over three decades. Walter Kendall Myers, a retired Europe expert at the State Department, and his wife Gwendolyn pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy and wire fraud in Washington, D.C. on Friday. The WaPo writes that the couple’s disdain for U.S. policies toward Cuba likely led them to spying for the Cuban government, although colleagues say the Myerses never talked of Cuba in public. Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in an article published yesterday on the CubaDebate Web site that, if news reports about the Myerses were true, “I can't help but admire their disinterested and courageous conduct on behalf of Cuba.” The WaPo goes on to say that Kendall Myers was convinced to join the State Department by the Cuban mission which visited the couple in South Dakota and recruited them in the late 1970s. Over the ensuing decades, the two are suspected of passing along information over a shortwave radio given to them by the Cuban government, and by exchanging shopping carts with handlers in grocery stores. But, according to documented statements by Gwendolyn Myers, the couple had stopped using that tactic in recent years. Instead, they had more recently been sending messages using encrypted e-mails sent from Internet cafes, says the report.
The LA Times reports from Mexico on a shootout in Acapulco over the weekend which left 18 gunmen and Mexican security officers dead. The paper calls the news “a fresh blow to a tourism industry that has been hit hard by a swine-flu outbreak and previous worries about escalating drug-related violence.” The gunfight began after army officials received a tip that drug traffickers were present at a house in the western section of Acapulco. Initial reports say the traffickers may have belonged to the Beltran Leyva drug-trafficking gang, based in the northwestern state of Sinaloa. After violence subsided, army officials say 49 rifles and handguns, 13 grenades, two grenade launchers, and a cache of more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition were discovered in the house.
In the Wall Street Journal, news on the new strategy to be used by the Obama administration to crack down on the drug trade along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a press conference from New Mexico, Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and new drug czar Gil Kerlikowske are expected to announce a 2009 counternarcotics strategy which will include better screening and detection technology at border crossings, new technologies to improve safety for officers protecting the border, and new methods of detecting underground tunnels used by drug networks. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the Homeland Security Committee in the House, said he was disappointed that the new strategy “does not call on departments of Homeland Security and Justice to resolve their long-standing turf battles over drug investigations” as well. Speaking in Arizona, Homeland Security Sec. Napolitano emphasized that “This is not just about slowing or impeding the flow of drugs from Mexico and Central America into the United States, it's also about reducing the demand for those drugs.”
And in the Miami Herald, another report on Cuba says the island could supply the U.S. with oil in a post-embargo world. Although relations with Cuba could cool after the arrest of two alleged Cuban informants on Friday, the MH writes that “Cuba has launched a bold policy of oil development that could turn the country into an important supplier of fuel in the Caribbean. However, amidst global economic uncertainties, the paper adds that “Venezuela's commitment to underwrite the multimillion-dollar projects in Cuban refineries and ports” might be delayed. The Cuban plan consists of processing about 350,000 barrels of crude oil daily and supplying the big demand for oil byproducts in nearby countries beginning in 2013 and will likely be discussed this week when Chávez and Cuban President Raúl Castro travel this week to Basseterre, the capital of St. Christopher and Nevis, to participate in the Sixth Summit of Petrocaribe.
In other news, the WaPo also featured a piece over the weekend on the submarines being utilized by Colombian drug traffickers smuggling drugs into the U.S. The report says that U.S. law enforcement officials now say that more than a third of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from Colombia travels in submersibles, and it is expected that at least 70 subs will be launched this year with a potential cargo capacity of 380 tons of cocaine.
In the NYT magazine, a piece on what pop star Shakira is doing for development in Latin America. The story looks at the foundation ALAS, headed by Shakira with the goal of making childhood education a top priority in Latin America. Among ALAS leading contributors are Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, Joseph Safra (Brazilian banker and investor), Alejandro Bulgheroni (Argentine oil and gas mogul), Emilio Azcárraga (Mexico; broadcasting) and Stanley Motta (Panama; airlines). Given the involvement of these high profile figures, the magazine asks: Could Latin America’s richest philanthropists succeed in reducing its crushing levels of inequality when generations of strongmen, technocrats, guerrillas and reformers have failed?
The LAT also reports from the U.S.-Mexico border on “blood wires”—the transfer of money to Western Unions in Mexico which aid human smugglers. Arizona Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard said human smuggling has become a $2-billion-a-year business in his state alone, and adds that the payments from family members, friends and employers to smugglers via Western Union and other companies is spurring such activity. Law enforcement agents are now demanding more full cooperation from Western Union on the issue of wire transfers.
From the WSJ, the paper says the Kirchners are coming under heavy fire from opponents ahead of June 29 legislative elections. Most Argentine polls show that the Kirchner’s Peronist faction will lose its majority in the lower house of Congress but will manage to hold on to relatively more influence in the Senate. Some analysts anticipate gridlock following the elections while others predict a new period of dialogue with the opposition and pragmatic policymaking.
Finally, two opinions on Cuba and Venezuela. In the WSJ, Mary Anastasia O’Grady writes about both the repealing of the OAS’s ban on Cuba and the meeting of conservative intellectuals at the Cedice think tank in Caracas last week. She writes that the OAS’s “state-sponsored event, sided with tyranny, while the Cedice meeting “held by private citizens in the most repressive country in South America, took a stand for liberty”—a dichotomy which she says could be “the region’s future.” While in the MH, anti-Castro, democracy advocate Orlando Gutierrez argues that “a new wave of authoritarian populists from St. Vincent and the Grenadines to Bolivia set their sights on the 1962 OAS resolution and its description of Marxism-Leninism as incompatible with the Interamerican system in order to remove an obstacle to the legitimization of their own efforts to concentrate government power, suppress independent media and regulate civil liberties out of existence.”
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