While the U.S. and others have prepared for an exodus of Haitian refugees after last month’s earthquake, “a small, well-educated and determined group of Haitians” is traveling in the opposite direction. The Haitian diaspora, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, is becoming more active in recovery and reconstruction efforts in the country, representing an important “reservoir of talent and money.” So much is this the case that the OAS is currently planning a meeting, likely to occur in early March, that will bring together Haitian diaspora groups in the U.S., Canada, France and the Dominican Republic, all in an effort to help Haiti rebuild. Before the quake, the diaspora sent about about $2 billion a year home, “a sum equal to about 30% of the country's gross domestic product,” according to the paper. But tensions have sometimes existed between those who have remained in the country and those who have left. “‘Émigrés are sometimes considered ‘arrogant, insensitive, overbearing and pretentious people,’ writes Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian-American author. And many suspect their political ambitions.” However, “The diaspora will play a key role rebuilding Haiti,” says Gerard Brun, recently designated by President Rene Preval as one of those who will help plan the country’s rebuilding efforts.
Also this morning, the AP writes that French President Nicolas Sarkozy travels to Haiti today with France’s own plan for how to rebuild the country. That visit, welcomed by some, is also “reviving bitter memories of the crippling costs of Haiti's 1804 independence,” in the AP’s words. Discussing the arrival of Mr. Sarkozy this week, many Haitian politicians have tried to sidestep the 2004 call of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide that France be required to pay the country reparations, but those close to Sarkozy have said the president “is not deaf” to such demands. The trip is “an occasion to show that France is mobilizing to give Haitians control of their destiny and pay past debts,” one official close to the French president tells the wire service. [France has already said it was canceling all of Haiti's 56 million euro (US$77 million) debt to Paris.] The New York Times, meanwhile, quotes a new Inter-American Development Bank study today which says the damage from January’s quake will end up totaling between $7.2 billion to $13.2 billion—significantly more than initially projected. The World Bank and UN Development Fund are also currently carrying out more detailed assessments of damages. All three organizations say “the sum will be beyond the scope of one agency or one bilateral donor” and will require significant international cooperation to manage. And the Miami Herald this morning looks at what recovery in Haiti might learn from the devastating 1985 quake in Mexico. The paper writes, a successful recover process in Mexico depended on reconstruction being “coordinated by a single government agency created just for that task.”
In other news this morning:
· The Times’ Simon Romero also reports today on how Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is “tightening his inner circle” and “purging” former loyalists. The piece starts out with the case of billionaire banker, Ricardo Fernandez—one of the so-called “Boligarchs” who’ve supported Chavez. But Fernandez was imprisoned last year, along with other pro-Chavez business leaders while other members of the “Bolibourgeoisie” have fled the country. Simon Romero writes the following, “At a time when Mr. Chávez struggles with public ire over electricity shortages and an economy in recession, the arrests show his ability to nimbly consolidate power while crisis swirls around him. To do so, Mr. Chávez is using tactics like secret-police raids and expropriations of some of his most powerful supporters’ businesses, relying on a dwindling number of military loyalists to carry out his orders.” According to Ismael García, identified as a “leftist legislator” who broke with Chavez in 2007, “We are witnessing the battle between competing mafias who prospered at Chávez’s heel.” Other opposition figures worry about increased Cuban presence in the country, the report goes on to say, particularly a certain “dossier” from Cuban intelligence agents which opposition groups say helped “crystallize” the purges of the last year.
· Also, in Venezuela’s Tal Cual this week, a piece of interest from Marino Alvarado of the Venezuelan human rights group, Provea. Alvarado addresses the question of “social rights” in Venezuela with a short but comprehensive breakdown of successes and shortcomings under the Chavez government. In the last decade, Alvarado argues, important policies have led to a decline in poverty, increased social inclusion in education, and significant agrarian reform. But in the areas of health, social security, and housing the Chavez government has been much less successful. “Overall, the government lacks coherency in its policies to guarantee social rights, there’s a great deal of improvisation in defining policies, and significant inefficiency in implementing others,” Alvarado concludes.
· In the most recent edition of The Atlantic, a report on Mexico’s drug war in the wake of the massacre of 16 youth in Ciudad Juarez (for more on violence in Juarez, see an opinion in today’s Miami Herald). The magazine writes, as others have in recent weeks, that “in response to the pressure, there are signs that President Calderon may at last now shift away from his primarily militarized strategy toward one more focused on tackling the social and economic roots of the problem.” The magazine quotes CIP’s Americas Program Director, Laura Carlsen who says “President Calderon was very weak when he took office. Two million people were protesting his election’s legitimacy, and he had problems with unity. He decided to launch this war on drugs to consolidate power, but there is no strategy.” Others like former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda have also called for a less militarized approach to the fight against traffickers. And many are now saying such a change should include more focus on “institution-building,” “reforming the rule of law,” and, increased “accountability.”
· On Honduras, the AP reports this morning that President Pepe Lobo has decided to retain Gen. Romeo Vasquez and other top military leaders involved in the June coup against then-President Mel Zelaya. “'The president told us he is no hurry to make changes to the military leadership, that he will do that when he thinks it's convenient,'' Col. Ramiro Archaga told reporters at a news conference after meeting with the president. “That means there will be no changes for now.” Lobo will also hold on to Defense Minister Lionel Sevilla, appointed by Roberto Micheletti after Zelaya's defense minister quit in protest after the June coup. Also, news that Colombia and Honduras have upped their level of cooperation on security issues, signing an accord to cooperate in the fight against narcotrafficking. The signing of the agreement in Bogotá came after Alvaro Uribe met with Lobo days after he was inaugurated in Tegucigalpa. The AP says Honduras is advancing in its efforts to reestablish international ties with the OAS as well as with the EU. However, Brazil has yet to move in that direction. Speaking this week from Spain, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim said an important component of reconciliation will be allowing Mel Zelaya the opportunity to return to his country and participate in politics once again. Amorim added that, for Brazil, it’s not a question of recognizing or not recognizing the Lobo government but rather one of deepening relations or not. Further, he said a decision on this question would continue to take into account “the interests of the sub-region,” not just those of his own country. \
· From the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Carlos Lauría, a piece on a lack of press freedom—with focus on Colombia, Argentina, and Venezuela, as well as mentions of Bolivia and Peru.
· From NACLA, a piece by Joel Richards on domestic insecurity, crime, and impunity in Argentina.
· At Open Democracy, Juan Gabriel Tokatlian writes about US Latin America policy, arguing that President Obama’s policies for the region have been unable to overcome domestic politics and very particular domestic constituency. He writes:
“The result of this erroneous over-primacy of internal over external politics is that the United States - and not just the Barack Obama administration - is losing leverage, confidence and credibility throughout Latin America. The worst possible scenario is that the inter-American system as a whole exhausts its basic legitimacy. The election in March 2010 of the next secretary-general of the Organisation of American States will become a test-case of that legitimacy.”
· And on that last point, Peter Hakim of the Inter-American Dialogue provides a response to those who have been particularly critical of the OAS and its Sec. General, José Miguel Insulza—the Washington Post editorial board among them. Hakim correctly points out that, “it is just wrong to argue that there has been ‘a steady erosion of free elections, free press, and free assembly in Latin America during the past five years.’ In that period, aside from Cuba, every Latin American nation has held at least one presidential election along with many legislative, provincial, and municipal elections. The international community has considered every one of those presidential elections to have been conducted freely and fairly—and only one, in Mexico, was contested by the losing candidate. Electoral fraud generally has been rare, and it has routinely occurred in only a few countries.” That said, Hakim continues, there have been places where democratic processes have deteriorated but this did not simply begin five years ago with the election of Sec. General Insulza.
“No one argues that Insulza’s first term as secretary-general has been a rousing success, but all the blame for the OAS’s disappointing performance cannot be pinned on him. In the past ten years, the increasingly polarized politics of Latin America have frustrated regional cooperation on democracy and virtually every other issue—and so has the foundering of U.S.-Latin American relations.”
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