UNASUR Pledges $300 Million in Direct Aid and Credit to Haiti

Leaders and representatives of 12 Latin American governments agreed Tuesday to provide Haiti with $300 million in aid at a UNASUR summit in Quito, Ecuador. The money—which include the creation of a $100 million fund for recovery and reconstruction as well as $200 million in “preferential credit” through the Inter-American Development Bank—will be specifically designated for areas of agriculture, electricity infrastructure, health and education. This according to Bloomberg News, which quotes the summit’s organizer, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa: “Latin America has stood up. The time has come to create a new kind of south-south aid.” Answering questions about festering disputes among some South American nations, particularly his own country’s tensions with neighboring Colombia, Correa added that “solidarity with Haiti will allow our differences to be overcome.” [As a point of comparison, the United States’ initial pledge to Haiti after the January quake was $100 million, although some say that number has grown since. In late January, Brazilian President Lula da Silva signed a decree providing $200 million in aid. Venezuela recently forgave Haiti’s $295 million oil debt. And ALBA member states gave $20 million in immediate aid, while pledging $100 million more]. More discussion of aid for Haiti, particularly related to subsidizing natural gas for the country and additional financing mechanisms, are likely to be on the agenda when the Rio Group convenes later this month in Mexico.

Joining Latin American leaders at the UNASUR summit was Haitian President Rene Preval. After the meetings, the president told reporters he was “extremely satisfied” that member nations had agreed to remove tariffs on Haitian imports. But Preval seemed most concerned with short-term aid, particularly the need for more tents as hundreds of thousands remain homeless in Haiti. Teresa Bo, Al-Jazeera’s Latin America correspondent, has some short analysis on what appeared to be a division between UNASUR’s long-term aid pledges and Preval’s search for short-term fixes. She quotes Preval, noting his fears of protests if basic services are not restored quickly: “I'm nervous. I have to go back to my country and I cannot talk about a long term plan. My people still do not have enough tents and it's raining. What aid can you give me now?” According to Bo, upon hearing Preval, “The president's of UNASUR looked shocked. They were trying to show the difference between themselves and countries like the US. They were talking about long term commitments and here was Preval demanding immediate assistance.”

More analysis of the Haitian government and its struggles with governance after the quake on the PBS Newshour on Monday. There, Ray Suarez interviews Haitian political scientist Jean Germain Gros and former US diplomat to Haiti and RAND Corp. analyst, James Dobbins. Gros, in particular, raises issues about what he calls an “ineffectual government” while Dobbins finished his discussion of Haiti with what some will consider troubling words about pushing through certain political and economic reforms after the quake. Here’s James Dobbins:

“I think that the -- the extra resources that Haiti is now going to have and the fact that the Haitian system has been so shocked, so devastated may make it easier to introduce some of these reforms than had been the case previously.”

Lastly, Bill Quigley at the Center for Constitutional Rights recaps Haiti, by the numbers, nearly one month after the quake. Among his most interesting statistics, “For every one dollar of U.S. aid to Haiti, 42 cents is for disaster assistance, 33 cents is for the U.S. military, 9 cents is for food, 9 cents is to transport the food, 5 cents to pay Haitians to help with recovery effort, 1 cent is for the Haitian government and ½ a cent is for the government of the Dominican Republic.” The AP says the death toll has now surpassed 230,000. And the Miami Herald this morning reports on the lack of government presence in tent cities in and around Port-au-Prince. The paper also highlights the role some mayors and pre-quake city commissioners have struggled to play, in the absence of the Haitian state.

In other news today:

· The BBC says the arrests of more than 20 drug traffickers in Colombia this week have connections to Mexican cartels. Specifically, officials say there are direct links between many of those apprehended and the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

· BBC Mundo reports on the closure of Cambio as a weekly magazine in Colombia, saying it has set off an impassioned debate about freedom of the press in the country. Many, including those writing at the popular Colombian news site, La Silla Vacia (here and here), argue that the magazine is being forced to close [the new monthly version is expected to focus on much “lighter” issues, says the BBC] for its tough criticisms of the current Uribe government.

· In Venezuela, the AP writes this morning that chavista legislators will discuss adopting new internal rules that would punish those lawmakers who break with President Hugo Chavez after being elected under the PSUV banner. However, according to the report, no specific rules have yet been outlined.

· In Chile, president-elect Sebastian Pinera says he will be including one member of the opposition Concertación in his cabinet. According to the Financial Times, that individual will be Christian Democrat Jaime Ravinet as Defense Minister. As Finance Minister, Pinera has named Felipe Larraín, “a Harvard-trained professor at Chile’s prestigious Universidad Católica, who has been a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and United Nations.” In what could cause a stir within the human rights community—already uneasy about Chile’s slight turn right—Pinera has also designated Cristián Larroulet as his chief of staff. Larroulet was previously an economic planning adviser for Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Human rights groups in the country have also come out against the recent designation by outgoing President Michelle Bachelet of Cristián Le Dantec as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Le Dantec has been accused of participating in the disappearance of 22 rural workers in 1973.

· The CS Monitor’s Tim Rogers reports from Central America, saying the last 7-months of coup regime governance in Honduras have set a bad example for neighboring Nicaragua. According to the report, “In neighboring Nicaragua…critics charge that President Daniel Ortega is using the Honduras episode as a cudgel – and a justification – for eroding the checks and balances of his country's fragile democracy.” Rogers goes on: “And like the case of Honduras, [Ortega] warned, international mechanisms for dealing with a democratic crisis, such as the Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS), have already proven ineffective.”

· This leads to a set of opinions today. First, an editorial in the Post calls on President Obama to strengthen that same “democratic charter” which President Ortega argues no longer exists in practice. The paper takes a hard swipe at OAS Sec. General, Jose Miguel Insulza, in the process, writing that “the embodiment of this [OAS] dysfunction” has been the Sec. General himself. The editorial goes on to ask Congress to “consider whether the United States should continue to provide the bulk of the funding for the OAS when it fails to live by its own charter.” Also today, Christopher Sabatini of the Americas Society argues for a US policy toward Latin America that moves beyond hemispheric crises. In the process, he has somewhat provocative criticism of UNASUR whose Tuesday aid pledge to Haiti he says “risks Balkanizing coordinated responses and collective commitments.” And the Latin America Working Group says the US response to Haiti as well as changes in the US foreign assistance budget announced last week hint at a possible “fresh start” for US Latin America policy.