In a statement released last week, the US Treasury Department said it would work with other countries to forgive all Haitian debt owed to international institutions while also calling for lenders to issue grants, not loans, to aid in the reconstruction of the country. “…Meeting Haiti's financing needs will require a massive multilateral effort.” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. “Today, we are voicing our support for what Haiti needs and deserves – comprehensive multilateral debt relief.” Geithner’s words follow those of IMF Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who earlier called for the full relief of Haiti's outstanding IMF debt [the IMF also provided the country with a $102 million emergency loan in late January] and coincide with last week’s meeting of the “G-7” in Northern Canada. Member nations there also announced that they too plan to cancel all of Haiti’s bilateral debt. “We are committed in the G7 to the forgiveness of debt, in fact all bilateral debt has been forgiven by G7 countries vis-a-vis Haiti,” Canada’s Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty told reporters after the group’s Friday meetings. The UK’s Gordon Brown echoed the words of Flaherty and Geithner, saying “The UK has already cancelled all debts owed to it by Haiti and I strongly welcome today's G7 commitment to forgive Haiti's remaining multilateral debt.”
In other Haiti news and analysis this weekend, the Washington Post has a different take on the recovery process still underway, writing that cooperation between aid groups has been “unprecedented.” The paper credits three factors for the cooperative efforts of various international relief organizations: “the nature of the injuries, improvements in communication, and an awareness that victims will suffer if relief groups don't cooperate.” The Post also reports on how Haiti’s criminal justice system has been wrecked by the mid January quake, leaving those arrested since with no chance to appear before a judge. “In a country that has struggled to control crime, the need for a functioning criminal justice system is not lost on officials. They have been looking at sites that could temporarily house court hearings, and they are scheduled to meet with judges this week to map out a plan for resuming some basic judicial functions,” says the paper. This as Reuters reports that hundreds of protestors marched Sunday in the streets of Petionville, a wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince. Demonstrators accused their district mayor of corruption and hoarding food aid provided by relief groups.
Bill Clinton, recently named the coordinator of international efforts in Haiti, arrived back to the country on Friday as well. Clinton said significant progress had been made in the areas of food, shelter, and security since his last visit but noted that sanitation and healthcare were quickly becoming the country’s most pressing challenges. And with opinions, author Ben Fountain writes in the New York Times that “if Haiti is to be rebuilt, or not merely rebuilt but transformed, then drug trafficking needs to be recognized for what it is, a primary force — arguably, the dominant force — in Haitian political life for the past 25 years.” He goes on: “The United States leads the world in cocaine consumption, which means there is a line that goes straight from our stupendous drug habit back to the conditions in Haiti, all those years of toxic governance that set the stage for so much destruction, so much death and injury.” Also, at the Social Science Research Council’s website, a series of essays on Haiti. Two that I recommend: former Haitian Ambassador Jean Casimir and Prof. Laurent Dubois’s piece which offers some terrific historical insights and Prof. Michael Dash’s piece which calls for the UN to take the lead in recovery efforts, along with an increased role from Canada, Brazil, and CARICOM member nations.
Around the region this weekend:
· Costa Ricans elected their first female president yesterday. Laura Chinchilla, protégé of current President Oscar Arias, held a 22% lead over her closest rival, with nearly all ballots counted. (Estimates indicate Chinchilla won some 47% of all votes, putting her past the 40% marker needed to prevent a second round). Interestingly, the second place candidate ended up being left-leaning Ottón Solís, not the law and order libertarian Otto Guevara whose popularity had risen significantly in most pre-election polls.
· From Honduras, former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein accepted an offer from President Pepe Lobo to establish the terms of reference for a truth commission. Speaking to Honduran reporters this weekend, Stein said he plans to put together a “sketch of the work the commission must carry, its scope, limits, form, operational structure, and the way in which it should be connected to other parts of Honduran society.” A first proposal on the commission will be handed in to the government within 8 days. And, says Stein, his group will work with the technical support of the OAS and the UNDP. Those who will aid Stein include Honduran lawyer and former rector National University Omar Casco and Oswaldo Ramos Soto. At Honduras Culture and Politics, RNS offers a critique of the truth commission process unfolding in Honduras, writing “this truth commission is not the result of a desire by the Honduran parties to the political crisis to discover truth, but rather is a condition imposed on the Honduran government through international pressure, especially from the United States, as part of the Teguicalpa-San Jose Accord.”
· At Just the Facts, the site’s first podcast has CIP Colombia expert Adam Isacson discussing the on-going question of presidential re-election. The issue of whether or not a referendum can be held is currently before a constitutional court in Colombia, but Isacson predicts that, as it currently stands, Uribe will likely be allowed to stand for a third consecutive term. Interestingly, a new Datexco poll published in Colombia’s El Tiempo indicates that 47% of Colombians reject the proposed referendum to allow for re-election (despite Uribe’s high popularity numbers). [Some 41% say they support the measure.] However, it’s still unknown how many would turn out for a spur-of-the-moment vote on the referendum which cannot be held simultaneously with the presidential vote in May. With other predictions, the National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF) in Colombia told El Tiempo recently that the chance of a third Uribe term is “not very likely.” They put their estimate around “30%.”
· Also from Colombia, the Economist this week looks at a set of decrees issued by President Uribe to change the country’s health system. According to the magazine, “Mr Uribe’s decrees include an increase in taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling, and measures to cut losses from corruption and bureaucracy. But his critics accuse him of taking advantage of this financial emergency to make more profound changes to the way health care is provided, and with little public debate.” The measures led to massive protests around Colombia Saturday, involving doctors, nurses, students, and trade unionists.
· On drugs and the drug war, the AP writes this weekend that despite regular news about drug-related killings in Mexico, the country has actually seen its homicide rate fall over the last decade. In Mexico City, the news service writes, murder rates are currently on par with Los Angeles, at 9 homicides per 100,000 (and less than a third of DC’s murder rate which stands at 30/100,000!). Mexico as a whole currently sees some 14 murders per 100,000. By comparison, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have homicide rates of between 40 and 60 per 100,000 people. The AP also reports on the destruction of 1200 acres of opium poppies in northern Guatemala by that country’s national police. And reacting to cuts in foreign aid, again President Alvaro Uribe said he expects the new and controversial US-Colombia defense agreement to offset foreign assistance cuts announced this week.
· Finally, with opinions. Andres Oppenheimer is critical of US cuts in foreign assistance to Latin America, arguing the reductions make it seem that Latin America is unimportant to the US. Mary O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal writes on the Central Bank controversy in Argentina. The Washington Post calls on President Obama to make good on his words about more trade agreements, including pushing forward deals with Panama and Colombia. And a report and an editorial in the Miami Herald say 2010 will be a very difficult year for President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the paper also runs an opinion from former Chavez loyalist and one-time Defense Minister, Raul Baduel. Among other points, Baduel, who writes from his jail cell in Venezuela, says the following:
“There are some who do not realize that the serious crisis facing the country could lead to social conflict with unpredictable consequences that would spill over our borders. This ominous future could be avoided by calling for a Constituent People's Assembly that would seek to restore the democratic principles that were violated by Chávez and that would prevent populist autocrats and demagogues in the future.
This assembly would establish a model for the state that would explicitly regulate the oil industry and how its revenue may be allocated and used. It also would establish a process to hold all branches of government accountable, so that the state could initiate investigations for administrative or criminal proceedings.”
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