Fujimori Sentence Upheld by Peruvian Supreme Court

The Peruvian Supreme Court has upheld the 25-year sentence handed down against ex-President Alberto Fujimori last April for ordering extrajudicial killings and kidnappings. According to the AP and AFP, the court published the decision on its website Sunday. The BBC notes that the April verdict was the first time a democratically elected leader of a Latin American country was later found guilty of human rights abuses in his own country. Moreover, Fujimori also is serving three other prison sentences concurrently—one for illegal wiretapping of journalists and opposition figures, another on corruption charges, and a third for abuse of power. However, there is much speculation that if Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko, were to be elected president in 2011 elections, the former president would be pardoned.

For more on the Fujimori trial and the appeal process, again, Jo-Marie Burt, accredited observer to the trial, has a recent piece at the Washington Office on Latin America.

In other recent news,

· The Wall Street Journal and others report on the capture of Carlos Beltran Leyva in Mexico Wednesday. Beltran Leyva is the brother of the notorious drug lord, Arturo Beltran Leyva, who was killed in a raid led by Mexican special forces two weeks ago. (Following the raid, the family of one of the Mexican naval officers killed in the operation was murdered). For his part, Carlos Beltran Leyva was arraigned Sunday for using a false driver’s license but preliminary indications are that the brother Beltran Leyva was not a major player in the drug gang his Arturo Beltran Leyva ran. The LA Times does note, however, that Carlos may provide important intelligence information. The AP also reports that a third Beltran Leyva brother, Alfredo, was also arrested, albeit in January 2008. And a fourth brother, Hector, still remains at-large. Many analysts consider Hector Beltran Leyva to be the “brains” of Beltran Leyva gang which broke off from Joaquin “el Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel in recent years.

· In today’s New York Times, Marc Lacey writes about a “Cuban Craigslist” site, which “allows the small but growing number of Cubans with access to computers and the Internet to buy and sell with less sneaking around.” The site (www.revolico.com) is designed to upload more quickly given Cuba’s slower connection speeds but authorities have from time to time blocked access to the site.

· Also on Cuba, a recent Marc Lacey piece says President Obama’s honeymoon has ended. “Mr. Obama, whose election was broadly celebrated by Cuba’s racially diverse population, is now being portrayed by this nation’s leaders as an imperialistic, warmongering Cuba hater,” writes the paper. According to the president of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, “As things appear now, there will be no big change in the relationship in the near future.” Among the reasons why, says Alarcón: a White House that is “too distracted with other issues to make Cuba a priority.” Wayne Smith, former chief U.S. diplomat in Havana and now of the Center for International Policy, calls the rising tensions “unfortunate.” Smith was supposed to travel to Havana this week with General Barry McCaffery to discuss cooperation on drug trafficking by Gen. McCaffery pulled out because of recent criticisms of the Obama administration by Cuban officials.

· 2009 troubles and disappointment for President Obama in Latin America extend beyond Cuba, says the LA Times. The paper notes a distancing between the U.S. and Brazil as well and a failure to seek a rapprochement with Venezuela and other left-leaning governments in the region. (For his part, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez began 2010 with new accusations that the U.S. anti-drug planes taking off from Aruba and Curacao are violating Venezuelan airspace).

· The Washington Post examines the growing middle class in Brazil. “Once hobbled with high inflation and perennially susceptible to worldwide crises, Brazil now has a vibrant consumer market, investment-grade status for its sovereign debt, vast foreign reserves and an agricultural sector that is vying to supplant that of the United States as the world's most productive,” writes the paper. Meanwhile, “Brazil's $1.3 trillion economy is bigger than those of India and Russia, and its per-capita income is nearly twice that of China,” and since 2003, more than 32 million people in a country of 198 million have entered the middle class.

· Both El País and the Financial Times have recent pieces on fears of a Latin American “arms race.” In the FT piece, Adam Isacson of the CIP says a recent spike in commodity prices has fueled new military purchases. While Michael Shifter of the Inter-American dialogue argues the absence of regional leadership has added to fears of an arms race. “Brazil is the obvious regional leader, and I think it has good intentions, but it’s stretched a bit thin,” Shifter says. On a related note, there’s news that Ecuador plans to start construction of a new UNASUR headquarters, to be located outside Quito.

· And in opinions this morning, Susan Kaufman Purcell of the Univ. of Miami’s Center for Hemispheric Policy adds more on Brazil, arguing the following:

“Brazil's multilateral efforts in the region seem to value the appearance of leadership over finding real solutions to the growing political and security threats facing Latin America. These conclusions do not imply that the U.S. and Brazil have no overlapping interests, or that they cannot work together to solve particular regional or even global issues. They do mean Washington may need to rethink its assumptions regarding the extent to which Brazil can be relied on to deal with political and security problems in Latin America in ways that are also compatible with U.S. interests.”

Finally, Andres Oppenheimer writes on new economic figures reported by ECLAC. According to the UN agency, the best performing economy in 2010 will be Brazil, with a projected 5.5 percent growth, followed by Peru and Uruguay, with 5 percent growth rates each. Chile, Panama and Bolivia, are expected to grow at 4.5 percent each. Argentina is expected to grow by 4 percent, and Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic by 3.5 percent. The worst performing economies will be Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, with 2 percent growth rates each.