The newly appointed attorney general in Mexico, Arturo Chavez, is quickly coming under fire from critics who say he did little to investigate the killings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez while a prosecutor in the northern state of Chihuahua. The Washington Post’s foreign correspondent William Booth reports that Juarez was recently named the most violent city in the world by Mexico’s Citizens’ Council for Public Security and Justice, and many in the city believe Mr. Chavez was part of the problem when he served as a top prosecutor there. “I consider him one of the most incompetent choices,” human rights advocate Jaime Hervella tells the paper. The nomination still needs to be approved by the Mexican senate, now controlled by the PRI, before Chavez can assume his new position. For his part, outgoing AG Eduardo Medina Mora had long been viewed as one of Washington’s closest allies in the “war on drugs.” The paper notes that his “custom made suits” and fluency in English had made Medina Mora the public face of U.S. support for the Mexican offensive against drug gangs. But an aide of Mr. Medina Mora’s was arrested last year for passing information to members of the Sinaloa cartel, tarnishing the attorney general’s image in the process.
From Colombia, the AP reports that President Alvaro Uribe signed legislation on Tuesday that calls for a referendum to amend the constitution and allow for his own reelection, for the second time. The measure which has already passed both Houses in Colombia, now goes to the Constitutional Court, as reported earlier. The court has 90 days to rule on the matter, and if approved there, at least 25% of all Colombians must cast a ballot on the measure in order for the vote to be considered valid. Meanwhile, Uribe’s neighbor and adversary, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, continued his international travels Tuesday, speaking with French newspaper Le Figaro. In the interview, reports Reuters, the president accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestine during last year’s bombing of Gaza.
There is little this morning on the crisis in Honduras, but a couple of interesting notes are reported outside the U.S. press. First, Honduras’s El Tiempo reports that ousted President Manuel Zelaya sent a letter to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week, thanking her for the actions taken by the U.S. late last week against the de facto regime in Tegucigalpa. Notably, Mr. Zelaya added in the letter that “as I expressed to you personally and as I have repeated publicly, I again confirm my firm decision to sign the San José Accords, proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias…I am willing to sign on, in Tegucigalpa, with the presence of Central American foreign ministers, President Oscar Arias, representatives of the OAS and UN, and you, as Sec. of State, as an honorary witness.” Sources say that one of the things that lawmakers with whom Mr. Zelaya met in Washington told the deposed leader was that he should publicly sign on to the San José Accords to show his constructive commitment to the Arias process. Also from Honduras, El Heraldo confirms that IMF funds sent to Honduras since the coup (totaling $163 million) will not be allowed to be used by the government since the Fund has not yet decided whether or not to recognize the government in Tegucigalpa (more at Honduras Coup 2009).
In other news items, the AP reports that Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has declared a “state of public calamity” in the face of a serious food shortage affecting thousands of Guatemalan families. Poor weather, soil problems, and the global economic crisis are all blamed for the current situation. The AP also notes that an Argentine appeals court has ordered the reopening of investigations against ex-president Fernando de la Rúa, accused of ordering a police crackdown in 2001 in which five protestors were killed. In Haiti, the Miami Herald writes that Dr. Paul Farmer, the new UN deputy special envoy to that country (under Bill Clinton), just completed his first trip to the Caribbean nation since taking on his new role. The goal of the trip was to “gauge how best to support the Haitian government in its national recovery plan.”
The MH also reports that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, recently returned from a trip to Cuba, is floating an old idea to restart talks with the Cuban government. The governor says a team of Cuban exiles (presumably moderates) should be used to dialogue with the regime, adding he floated the idea to Cuban leadership while in Havana. Meanwhile, news this week that another prominent Cuban American exile and former DOD official, Alberto Coll, had been investigated by the FBI for espionage. Coll was convicted of lying about a trip to Cuba in 2004 and was put on probation and fined. And also, the CIA released documentation this week, showing a complaint by a CIA whistleblower over the agency’s relationship with the now jailed Peruvian “spymaster” Vladimiro Montesinos.
Finally, one noteworthy opinion today in the Wall Street Journal. There, Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau (who spoke at Brookings yesterday), writes on the growing relationship between Iran and Venezuela and argues that “Now is the time to develop policies in this country to ensure this partnership produces no poisonous fruit.” In particular, Mr. Morgenthau notes reports that Venezuela may have 50,000 tons of unmined uranium which Iran may be eying. “The public needs to be aware of Iran's growing presence in Latin America,” concludes Morgenthau. “Moreover, the U.S. and the international community must strongly consider ways to monitor and sanction Venezuela's banking system. Failure to act will leave open a window susceptible to money laundering by the Iranian government, the narcotics organizations with ties to corrupt elements in the Venezuelan government, and the terrorist organizations that Iran supports openly.”
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