At a board meeting of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), headed by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, the aid agency officially suspended some $11 million originally intended for Honduras. According to U.S. officials, the money includes funding for arms sales, military training, and security assistance, adding to the $30 million in non-humanitarian aid cut by DOS last week. Quoted in Reuters, which reports on the aid cuts, the acting chief of the MCC, Darius Mans, remarked that “today's board meeting is a reminder that MCC funds are earned and not automatic.” Reuters also adds that the MCC has temporarily suspended $4 million in aid that it was to provide for a road building project, jointly funded with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. The Central American development bank froze its aid program to Honduras in late August. Wednesday’s decision, however, was not praised by all Wedneday. Conservative House Republican, Ileana Ros-Lhetinen, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, for example, condemned the measures, saying “it would appear U.S. officials will stop at nothing to force the people of Honduras into accepting the imposition from abroad of Zelaya's return to power, regardless of the law or long-term consequences.” Also on Honduras this morning, McClatchy’s Tyler Bridges writes in the Miami Herald that the current regime in Tegucigalpa “remains dead set against the return of Manuel Zelaya,” even after the latest round of U.S. sanctions. “In fact,” Bridges writes, “the government of interim President Roberto Micheletti appears to be digging in its heels against Zelaya by circulating accusations the ousted president illegally used public money to keep horses, buy watches and jewelry and repair his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.” A particular sticking point for the regime has been the issue of amnesty, which de facto foreign minister Carlos Lopez Contreras says is dependent on the Congress and Supreme Court, both of which have rejected amnesty for Mr. Zelaya should he reenter the country. And, as the AP reports, two left wing candidates who had intended to run in November Honduran presidential elections are now suspending their campaigns until Manuel Zelaya is restored as president. Nevertheless, several other candidates in the race have pledged to continue.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez continued his latest international trip with a visit to Russia Wednesday where he is expected to sign a new arms deal and energy accords. Meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, Mr. Chavez first received press attention for his rhetoric, however, telling the Russian president that he was recognizing the pro-Russian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, rather than parts of Georgia. As Reuters writes, Nicaragua had been the only country to recognize the two break away territories as independent. In a separate report, the wire service also writes that Mr. Chavez praised Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for his firm policies with the United States. In a two and a half hour speech in front of Moscow students, Chavez “berated the United States for seeking to control the world with what he called a ‘terrorist’ empire.” “The empire of the Yanks will fall this century, and I am not talking about the end of the century but in the next decades,” Chavez declared. Meanwhile, back in his native Venezuela, the Guardian’s Rory Carroll has a fascinating piece on Venezuelan police officers and the code of impunity that often rules their work in the country’s slums. Human rights group workshops are now being started by Venezuelan authorities to “rein in trigger-happy officers,” and the commissioner of the Caracas police recognizes the need for urgent reform. “The police have very little training in human rights. Some guys think, I'm the law, I have the power, I can do what I want. And because people don't denounce the killings, the culture of impunity grows,” he tells the paper. Human rights advocate Pablo Fernandez, of the Support Network for Justice and Peace, adds to this, saying “Extra-judicial executions are extremely widespread. It's a habitual practice.” Recently, the country’s justice minister even remarked that perhaps 20% of all crime in the country was committed by police officers. In just under one year police were implicated in some 755 cases of homicide, and while the government launched a police reform commission in 2006, its recommendations were mostly ignored as the president has rotated new members into his cabinet with frequency. [For more on violence in the region, also see an article in today’s Wall Street Journal on the use of armored vehicles by the wealthy in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo].
Two interesting notes on Nicaragua as well today. First, Bloomberg reports that current Nicaraguan Vice President, Jaime Morales, has split with President Daniel Ortega on the issue of re-election. Morales said this week that he will even step down if Ortega amends the constitution and subsequently wins reelection after his term ends in 2012. “Re-elections have spawned dictatorships, tyrannies, confrontations and civil war,” Morales said in an interview in Managua. Morales is not a member of the Sandinista party, however, and is perhaps best known for serving as a negotiator for the Contras during the late 1980s. He joined Mr. Ortega in an attempt to form a unity government in 2006. Also, as reported by the LA Times, the Knight Center issued a new statement saying opposition leaders, journalists, and major media figures in the country are again urging President Daniel Ortega to stop shutting down various radio frequencies in the country.
In other news, Mexican police successfully ended the hijacking of a Mexican airliner by a Bolivian pastor, claiming to be on a mission from God. The plane was carrying over 100 passengers. Also, police in Tabasco state arrested three individuals suspected of being involved in the murder of a political candidate and his family over the weekend. None of the men, however, appear to have any link to drug cartels in the region. In El Salvador, four men were arrested in relation to the killing of French filmmaker Christian Poveda. The suspects are all members of the Salvadoran gang Mara 18. And the Miami Herald reports that the U.N. Security Council held a special session Wednesday to hear “a status update” on the situation in Haiti. The session included reports from special envoy Bill Clinton as well as Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis. And the paper writes that “the common thread throughout the presentations was that Haiti could indeed be rebuilt, but only with cooperation between the Haitian government, the international community and the Haitian diaspora.” Interestingly, the former president also added that Haiti has provided a unique forum for rare cooperation among the U.S., Venezuela and Cuba.
Finally, one opinion today. The Washington Post, in usual form, comments on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s latest globetrotting exploits and new reports depicting the growing relationship between the South American country and Iran. The paper writes “Debates in Washington about Hugo Chávez often end with the dismissive conclusion that the Venezuelan strongman poses no threat to the United States.” But with Iran, this could change. The two countries signed a new gasoline deal this week, and “In the past several years Iran has opened banks in Caracas and factories in the South American countryside” which allegedly could be used to evade U.S. and U.N. sanctions imposed on Iran. DOS said it will look into the claims made by Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau at Brookings this week, but the Post insists the threat Venezuela poses is growing.
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