Last week, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner canceled another foreign trip—her second cancellation in one week—this time to nearby Bolivia where she was expected to be present at the inauguration of Evo Morales. Kirchner’s reason, once again: a fear of leaving Vice President Julio Cobos alone with other opponents like Central Bank chief, Martin Redrado. As Perfil reported last week, Ms. Kirchner did not want to leave Cobos as the de facto president while she was out of town, suspecting he might call the Argentine Congress into an extraordinary session to ratify Redrado as head of the Central Bank and thus block the president’s attempt to use the recently created “Bicentennial Fund” to pay off part of the country’s external debt.
Now, this morning, a new twist. The Wall Street Journal reports that dissident banker Martin Redrado plans to return to work today, against President Kirchner’s orders. He’ll have to get through a line of police officers, however, who have been instructed by the government to arrest Redrado should he attempt to enter his office. This after what the paper calls a “two-pronged” court decision late Friday which upheld an earlier ruling banning the use of reserves to pay down the Argentine debt unilaterally (by the president) but also ambiguously “deferring the fate of the bank president to Congress and the executive branch.” The story goes on:
“The Kirchner government interpreted that part of the ruling as a victory in its battle against Mr. Redrado, who it maintains must step aside while Congress deliberates the matter this week. Mrs. Kirchner's hand-picked replacement, Miguel Angel Pesce, who had been Mr. Redrado's second in command, signed a document Friday confirming himself as interim president, the government said.”
Redrado, however, maintained he is the bank’s rightful president until the Congress tells him otherwise, writing in Argentina’s La Nación over the weekend.
In other news from the weekend:
· On Haiti, Reuters writes this morning that Brazilian UN troops are working with US troops in at least part of the country, handing out food and water now in one of Port-au-Prince’s most famous slums, Cite Soleil. There were no reports of security incidents as relief came into the neighborhood. Also, while the Pan American Health Organization says there have been no reports of much-feared disease outbreaks yet, international aid organizations are turning much of their focus this week to the massive tent cities that have sprung up across Port-au-Prince. The International Organization on Migration says some 100,000 more tents are needed to give Haitian survivors shelter and the organization has appealed for $30 million in funding to help in this effort. Meanwhile, the Haitian government said over the weekend that the search and rescue phase of the recovery was coming to an end. The government also said more than 150,000 bodies had been removed and buried in the last week and a half. This figure was up from the number of 111,000, reported earlier in the weekend.
The British medical journal Lancet issued a report last week, accusing international relief organizations of what The Guardian calls “corporate preening and self-interest” in the aftermath of the quake two weeks ago. According to Michael Schuster, a volunteer US doctor running a ward at Port-au-Prince's general hospital, “tens of thousands were likely to die because they had received no medical treatment while emergency teams scoured rubble for signs of life.”
The LA Times reported on the reopening of Haitian banks on Saturday to “give businesses a boost and free up money to begin the long task of rebuilding the country.” The Miami Herald discusses Haitian Ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph’s recent comments about how to rebuild Haiti. Amb. Joseph insisted on CSPAN over the weekend that the country would be rebuilt “differently” this time around. And news that the U.S. has agreed to provide medical supplies to the over 400 Cuban doctors now working in and around Port-au-Prince. Increased medical cooperation between the US and Cuba in Haiti has been promoted by various advocacy organizations in recent weeks.
And with Haiti opinions, former USAID head, Andrew Natsios in Newsweek, an LA Times editorial, Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal, Amy Wilentz in the The Nation, Mark Schneider, again, in the Miami Herald, and Jackson Diehl (mostly about Hugo Chavez and Haiti) in the Washington Post.
· From Venezuela, two marches—one pro-Chavez and one anti-Chavez—took place in the capital city of Caracas on Saturday. Interestingly, the date of the marches had great historical symbolism, as Venezuelans marked the anniversary of the fall of the Marco Perez Jimenez dictatorship in 1958. Opponents of the president criticized the recent devaluation of the Venezuelan bolívar as well as electricity rationing. The pro-Chavez march ended with a speech from the president himself who demanded “absolute loyalty to his leadership” from his supporters, as he promised to deepen the country’s revolution. Then, on Sunday, television station RCTV was removed from cable TV. The move comes after the Venezuelan government refused to renew RCTV’s license to broadcast on public airwaves in 2007. Venezuelan officials say RCTV was not abiding by government regulations, which include airing the President’s speeches in their entirety. Critics of Mr. Chavez assert the action is an attempt to marginalize the opposition.
· On Honduras, the Washington Office on Latin America has put out of a list of “minimum conditions” that it believes must be met before the U.S. restarts aid to the country. The list includes 1. Verification that human rights abuses have ended, followed by the investigation and prosecution of violators, 2. The demilitarization of Honduran society and the return of the military to their barracks. 3. The establishment of a Truth Commission. And, 4. The development and implementation of a national dialogue process with all sectors of Honduran society. Also, Spain has said it will not send a representative to Pepe Lobo’s inauguration (the U.S. confirmed last week it would). And in The Economist an unnamed Brazilian diplomat says his country will only recognize the new government if it gives amnesty to Mel Zelaya, forms a unity government with some of Zelaya’s supporters, and is willing to discuss constitutional reform.
· Reuters reports this morning that the U.S. is seeking the extradition of former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo on money-laundering charges. The request was approved by the Guatemalan government late last week but investigators have been unable to locate the ex-president thus far.
· New reports say Sec. of State Hillary Clinton has written a letter to Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, indicating a willingness to talk with UNASUR and its member states about defense and security issues. Correa and many other Latin American leaders have long-insisted that the subject of increased US military presence at seven bases in Colombia be discussed through UNASUR-US talks. The U.S. military in Latin America is also the topic of Greg Grandin’s feature piece in the upcoming issue of The Nation. Grandin argues that Plan Colombia is the “anchor” of a “condensed Monroe Doctrine” marked by “a volatile mix of militarism and free-trade orthodoxy in a corridor running from Mexico to Colombia.”
· The New York Times profiles Chilean human rights activist Ana Gonzalez.
· Finally, one last opinion this morning as Anne Manuel, formerly of Human Rights Watch, praises the upholding of the Fujimori decision in Peru. And, further, she says the process could teach the U.S. a thing or two about accountability in the face of crisis.
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