The Wall Street Journal and New York Times both report this morning that Peru’s Prime Minister, Yehude Simon, will soon resign amidst sharp criticism of his handling of the protests in Bagua which ended in the death of well over 30 Peruvians. The NYT calls Simon a “former left wing activist” who joined President Alan Garcia’s cabinet last October in an attempt to mend relations with the poor in Peru, as well as to counter the influence of left-leaning nationalists in the country. On Monday, Simon said he had reached a compromise with indigenous groups, announcing that he would ask Peru’s legislature to repeal controversial decrees that would expand development into the Amazon region. The WSJ provides more details on the potential fallout of the resignation, reporting that Mr. Simon's resignation will lead to the resignation of the entire cabinet, as required under Peru’s constitution. This could open the door for Alan Garcia to purge ministers tarnished by the conflict, speculates the paper, in particular Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas. Some analysts add that the Garcia government will also be forced to step away from his unofficial policy of “favoring investments with or without the consent of local population.”
And also this morning, three stories on major drug busts, as reported in the other major papers. First, the Washington Post has an AP story from Guatemala reporting that counter-narcotics authorities there seized 9.9 million pseudoephedrine pills with an estimated street value of $33 million on Tuesday. It is considered to be the country’s largest ever seizure of such pills. The pills had arrived in the Guatemalan port of Puerto Quetzal from India, and Guatemalan authorities said cooperation with DEA officials led to the confiscation. Officials in the region say that Central American countries are increasingly importing the pills as a way of getting around a ban on the chemical in Mexico.
In the Miami Herald a story on the Mexican military’s discovery of one of the largest meth labs ever discovered in that country. The paper reports that enough ephedrine to produce 40 tons of the drug was also found at the laboratory located on a remote mountaintop site in the state of Sinaloa. Vice Admiral Jorge Humberto Maldonado of the Mexican navy, responsible for the discovery, called the find “one of the heaviest blows to the drug traffickers in this administration ... as far as synthetic drugs are concerned.” The street value of the would-be drug is estimated at around $1.4 billion. It is not yet known which drug cartel was running the lab.
And the BBC, also from Mexico, reports that the Mexican Navy also seized over one ton of cocaine hidden inside the carcasses of frozen sharks. More than twenty sharks were found on a freight ship at the port of Progreso on the Yucatan peninsula. While perhaps the most novel means of hiding drugs discovered in some time, traffickers are increasingly seeking out ever more surreptitious methods of transportation. Beer cans, furniture, and religious statues have also been used as secret transport containers, Mexican officials say.
In other news this morning, the MH writes that some in Haiti, and in the U.S., are calling for a delay in runoff Senate elections amid allegations of fraud and other irregularities. Both the Washington, D.C-based think tank the Haiti Democracy Project and former Haitian presidential candidate Charles Henry Baker say the vote scheduled for Sunday must be postponed as reports of election violence between rival political parties increases. Eleven vacant seats remain up for grabs in the Haitian Senate, and supporters of President Rene Preval say the vote could lay the political foundation for Préval's Lespwa coalition to gain control of the chamber and seek a reform of Haiti's constitution. However, James Morrell, project executive director of the Haiti Democracy Project, says all of the questions about irregularities, ballot stuffing and candidates with alleged criminal past “should be dealt with before you have the next round.”
And a few opinions today. In the MH, Michael Putney asks why might former State Dept. official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, acted as spies for the Cuban government? Showing little sympathy for the couple, he writes the couple seems to “resemble this pattern of ideological upper-class obsession for a supposed idyllic totalitarian system.” In the WSJ, former Asst. Sec. of State for Inter-American Affairs, Bernard Aronson writes about the custody battle that continues between Brazil and the U.S. over a 9 year old boy, arguing “To avert the coming train wreck in U.S.-Brazil relations, Brazil must demonstrate that it is a nation that honors its treaty obligations.” And Sec. of State Hillary Clinton writes in the WaPo about the growing problem of human trafficking as the State Dept. releases its annual report on the subject. The Secretary writes that “Trafficking weakens legitimate economies, breaks up families, fuels violence, threatens public health and safety, and shreds the social fabric that is necessary for progress.” Regarding Latin America, Ms. Clinton cites progress in Costa Rica, long a hub for commercial sex trafficking. She notes that the country passed an anti-trafficking law this year; trained nearly 1,000 police, immigration agents and health workers to respond to trafficking; launched a national awareness campaign; and improved efforts to identify and care for victims.
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