Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began her five-tour tour of Latin America Monday, meeting first with new Uruguayan president José Mujica just hours before his inauguration. Clinton also met with both Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe while attending Monday’s events in Montevideo. And as the New York Times reports, Ms. Clinton congratulated Mr. Uribe, in particular, for accepting the Colombian constitutional court’s ruling late last week which denied the president a bid for a third term. From Montevideo, Clinton made the short 30 minute flight to Buenos Aires yesterday afternoon—a late addition to the secretary’s travel schedule. There she met face-to-face with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who the Times calls an “outspoken critic of the Obama administration,” particularly on issues of trade, climate change, and the coup in Honduras. However, the major issue under discussion in Buenos Aires was Argentina’s current feud with Great Britain over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. Clinton said the US would remain neutral in the dispute but said she would gladly “facilitate” and offer support for dialogue between the two countries if asked.
This morning Ms. Clinton continues to quake-struck Chile for meetings with both outgoing President Michelle Bachelet and her successor, Sebastian Pinera. Late Tuesday she will arrive in Brasilia for talks with President Lula da Silva. It is that meeting which is drawing the most attention this week as Sec. Clinton is expected to seek Brazil’s support for tougher UN sanctions against Iran. Last week, Clinton told a Senate committee that Iran would be “on the top of her agenda” while in Latin America. But, Julia Sweig, who has audio commentary on the Brazil visit up at the Council on Foreign Relations website, says Brazil is unlikely to support a new round of Iran sanctions. “Brazil sees sanctions in the wake of Iraq as the slippery slope toward the use of military force,” argues Sweig. “Moreover, Brazil sees its own experience in moving toward democracy and in moving toward a peaceful civilian nuclear program as a potential model that Iran could follow.”
Sweig goes on: “The Brazilians do have a channel with Iran, and they do have people on the ground there and a level of discussion which might give them some window into the internal political upheaval that's taking place. So I would say rather than fully dismiss this as a spoiler, wait and see whether the Brazilians actually have something to deliver in terms of modifying Iranian behavior.” Also from the Council on Foreign Relations, Shannon O’Neil has a new report looking at Brazil’s rise as a global power, from the perspective of the US, maintaining that “whether the US and Brazil will be willing and able to form a ‘special relationship’ remains unclear.” And a new piece at the North American Congress on Latin America analyzes post-Lula Brazil—particularly the PT’s relationship with its left-leaning base and the still-lingering issues of internal inequalities and natural resource exploitation in the Amazon.
To other news today:
· In Chile, where Hillary Clinton arrives this morning, the Chilean government has made a slight about-face, now calling for an influx of international aid. In particular, the United Nations said Monday that the government had asked for “generators, water filtration equipment and field hospitals, as well as experts to assess just how much damage was caused by Saturday’s magnitude 8.8 quake.” As with the recent quake in Haiti, significant media attention is also being placed on the problem of so-called “looters”—an issue some analysts are connecting to Chile’s still prevalent social inequalities, often glossed over because of its national economic success. Some 10,000 troops have been deployed to those areas most seriously impacted by Saturday’s quake and curfews have been instituted. But as the Washington Post writes, “even as the first contingents fanned out on foot and in army tanks, they seemed largely unable to contain the chaos. In Concepcion, looters set fire to a department store and supermarket, and a massive cloud of black smoke billowed over the city.”
· Various opinions and editorials address Chile this morning as well. The NYT runs a piece by Chilean author Alberto Fuguet who says the country currently lives in a “state of suspension.” A WP editorial looks at the issue of the presidential transition--just 10 days away-- in the wake of the quake and Mr. Pinera’s announced plan for private-led reconstruction, “Let’s Raise Chile Up.” The Miami Herald writes that the quake should lead to an even deeper relationship between the US and Chile and a burying of the past, particularly the United States’ support for the 1973 coup that toppled the government of Salvador Allende. And, at the Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens seems to have been waiting for just the right moment to write an homage to Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys’ who worked in Chile under Augusto Pinochet—crediting these men with preventing what he says would have been nothing short of an “apocalypse.”
· The Wall Street Journal also reports today on Spanish National Court Judge, Eloy Velasco, who alleged Monday that the Venezuelan government had collaborated with the Basque separatist group ETA and Colombia’s FARC in assassination plots against Colombian leaders—including President Alvaro Uribe—while traveling in Spain in 2003. The allegations were part of an indictment issued by Velasco against ETA. PM José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has already contacted the Venezuelan government, asking for an explanation. For its part, Caracas says the charges are “bias and unfounded.”
· Also in Venezuela, the AP reports that the Attorney General’s office is petitioning a Venezuelan court to approve a request for the extradition of former President Carlos Andres Perez for violence committed during the 1989 “Caracazo.” Some 300 people were killed during the riots which began as a protest against rising gas prices and transportation fares. According to the report, none of the government officials, military officers or police responsible for putting down the riots has ever gone to trial for the deaths. And, BBC Mundo reports on the launching of the “Dispositivo Bicentenario de Seguridad" (Dibise) this week. The year-long new public security project will include agents from various agencies, including national and regional police, in an effort to quell rising citizen insecurity and violence.
· On drug trafficking and Mexico, the new 2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report from the State Dept. concludes that “anti-drug efforts in Mexico led to thousands of arrests last year but marijuana cultivation increased and traffickers began shifting their routes” and violence southward to Central America.” In particular, Guatemala and Panama have become important new points of transit for drugs headed north, the report indicates, while money laundering continues to be a pressing challenge for both the US and Mexico. The report also once again cited Venezuela and Bolivia as countries that are not doing enough to stem drug production and trafficking. “A permissive and corrupt environment in Venezuela, coupled with increased drug interdiction efforts in the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico, has made Venezuela one of the preferred routes for trafficking illicit narcotics out of South America,” according to the report. However, Venezuelan officials say the recorded an 11 percent increase in drug seizures last year.
· From the Miami Herald yesterday, a report on stalled efforts to engage with Cuba after the continued detainment of US contractor, Alan Gross, and the recent death of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo. “There's proof that each time we try to promote an increased free flow of people and information, the Castro regime digs in,” Sec. of State Hillary Clinton told Congress last week. While another senior senate staffer who works for a senator who supports an end to the travel ban emphasized that it’s the issue of Mr. Gross which is most important in explaining the halt on engagement. “The tipping point on Cuba is the Gross issue. It's a hot potato,” he tells the paper. However, Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas takes a different view, telling the paper that the death of Zapata in particular is “further proof that we need to try another approach to Cuba.”
· Finally, some opinions. In the MH, Oscar Arias has a piece telling the region it must “grow up,” overcome ideological differences, and work much harder to build “trustworthy institutions.” He writes:
“We must not confuse the democratic origins of a regime with the democratic functioning of the state. There are, in our region, governments that use electoral results to justify their desire to restrict individual liberties and hunt down their adversaries. A true democrat, facing no opposition, creates it.”
And, via Real Clear World, a piece from Federico Delgado says many analysts over-attention on Hugo Chavez—particularly in the case of Honduras—has led them to miss something important that has happened over the last year: the emergence of a new sort of regional diplomacy led by the likes of Lula and Costa Rica’s Oscar Arias. Delgado writes:
“For all the recent apprehension over China's - or even Iran's - rising influence in Latin America, the reality is that the most important development in the continent is the consolidation of leaders with the capacity or the willingness, or both, to advance and advocate their own agencies.”
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