Globovision Head Detained, Released in Venezuela

A second high-profile critic of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was detained by intelligence officials Thursday. This time it was Globovision president, Guillermo Zuloaga, who was picked up at a northwestern Venezuela airport, flown to Caracas for questioning on what Venezuelan attorney general Luisa Ortega calls spreading false information “offensive” to the government of Hugo Chavez, and then released. That charge apparently stems from a speech Zuloaga gave Sunday at a forum on press freedoms in Aruba, sponsored by the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA). According to the Wall Street Journal, via Globovision itself, Mr. Zuloaga’s release came with the condition that he would not leave the country (Zuloaga says he on his way to Bonaire for an Easter holiday while the attorney general claims the head of Globovision was on his way out of the country for good).

The brief detention of Zuloaga comes as former Gov. Oswaldo Alvarez Paz remains in jail for comments he made on the Globovision two weeks ago, critical of the Chavez’s alleged relationship with narcotraffickers and the FARC. Quoted in the WSJ’s coverage, Miguel Henrique Otero, editor of the Venezuelan daily, El Nacional, responds to the two arrests. “They [the government] want to scare anyone who has an opinion. It’s as if every Venezuelan is on parole and could be arrested at any moment.” It’s interesting to note, as the WSJ does, that media crackdowns by the Chavez government have specifically targeted television stations while the country’s major opposition newspapers have remained in large part “exempt” (although some newspaper owners fear they could be next, according to the report). The media has been a criticized by President Hugo Chavez since the 2002 coup which temporarily removed him from office—an action Chavez says major media moguls supported.

More on the arrest of Zuloaga from the New York Times which reports that the head of Globovision could face a prison term of 3-5 months for his “offensive” commentary, or 3-5 years if convicted on the charge of “divulging false information.” This according to the country’s attorney general.

In other news:

· A major arrest in Mexico’s struggle against drug cartels came Wednesday as the country’s police detained José Antonio Medina, aka “the King of Heroin” or “Don Pepe.” The LA Times says Medina was picked up in Michoacan and, as is the practice, paraded before the media in a press conference Thursday. Officials say Medina ran a heroin ring that smuggled about 440 pounds of the drug into Southern California per month, totaling somewhere around $12 million in monthly profits. Medina’s ring is considered by most experts to be independent but closely allied with “La Familia,” the brutal Michoacan-based drug cartel. The AP adds that while heroin use in the US is largely considered to have stabilized (or even decreased), the principal source of the drug has shifted from Colombia to Mexico in recent years.

· In other drug violence-related stories today, the Wall Street Journal runs a piece on violence in Juarez and its effects on maquiladoras and others businesses in the city. Until two years ago, the paper writes, the city was a “thriving manufacturing hub.” Today, “some executives now carpool to work in a convoy, fearing they could otherwise be abducted. Whole factory work forces are undergoing kidnapping training. Routes to and from the bridge in El Paso are now patrolled by armed military guard.” The New York Times has a note on a major prison break in Matamoros in which 41 prisoners—apparently aided by prison guards—escaped a state penitentiary. The Times also reports on how US border patrol agents are stepping up cross-border cooperation with their Mexican police counterparts. These efforts include more “coordinated operations” and “intelligence sharing,” writes the paper. The report goes on: “The move toward cooperation intensified in the past year after law enforcement leaders in both countries recognized that working separately, they were losing ground against increasingly aggressive and bloody Mexican drug trafficking and immigrant smuggling organizations...” The piece also notes that training Mexican police officer at the border in Nogales, Arizona has been the major experiment related to this new initiative. Interestingly, however, the AP also reports today that Mexican police remain the “biggest culprits” in perpetuating a system of bribery and corruption within the country. Forty-five percent of all instances of bribe demands come from the police, says a new study by BRIBEline. Most of those cases are for purposes of extortion.

· Via CEPR’s Haiti Watch, word and analysis on President Obama’s formal request to Congress this week that $2.8 billion be added to this year’s budget for Haiti reconstruction and recovery efforts (as Haiti Watch notes, much of the $2.8 billion requested by Obama will be used to reimburse funds already spent in Haiti). The BBC says the Senate is close to a deal on a bill that meets the president’s request, and The Cable has more on Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates’ trip to Capitol Hill yesterday to testify about the requested monies. The World Bank estimates that a total of $11.5 billion will be needed for reconstruction. News today says the EU will likely pledge $1.3 billion at next week’s UN donors’ conference. A group of 193 US NGOs also plans to give $464 million for reconstruction and $421 million for relief in Haiti. And, an editorial in the New York Times focuses on Haiti again this morning, worrying that a sense of urgency within the US may be waning even as the emergency in the country deepens.

· Another interesting Haiti story in the Miami Herald this morning looks at how an international coalition of journalists, organized in what is being called the Haiti News Project, are helping the country’s newspaper industry get back on its feet. The project’s head is Joe Oglesby, a former editorial page editor of the Miami Herald. The main objectives of the project include providing equipment and technology, professional training, and tents for homeless reporters. More at the group’s new site, available here.

· Repression against anti-coup resistance activists in Honduras continued this week with the assassination of Honduran professor Jose Manuel Flores at the Tegucigalpa school where he taught classes. Flores was ambushed by hooded individuals and shot in the back while he entered the school Tuesday. A statement from the rights group Rights Action denounces the murder and continued targeting of the FNRP. And via Prof. Adrienne Pine’s blog, Quotha, a statement from the coalition Human Rights Platform has information on the continued threat of violent evictions targeting members of Aguan United Farmworkers Movement (MUCA) engaged in land occupations in the Aguan Valley.

· Repression in Cuba is the subject of another Miami Herald editorial this morning. Meanwhile, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-SD), an advocate of changes to US Cuba policy, called on Cuba to release US contractor, Alan Gross, yesterday as a means of helping persuade Congress to lift the travel ban.

· The online magazine Upside Down World asks why new billionaire Chilean President Sebastian Pinera is getting a salary raise?

· Via La Silla Vacía, the latest poll numbers ahead of late May’s presidential vote in Colombia. A breakdown of the top three candidates puts Juan Manuel Santos with 34.2%, Conservative Noemí Sanín with 23.3%, and Antanas Mockus with 10.4%.

· Finally, with opinions, Mexico-based journalist Mike O’Connor at Global Post is much more skeptical than most that Tuesday’s changes in US-Mexico anti-drug cooperation will have any significant impact. “…we need to remember the bright words from our diplomats in Mexico,” he says, “because they will provide interesting reference points when, not so long from now, the whole thing falls apart. Calderon, or his successor, will be then be lauded by American officials for boldly moving to plan B. Only, no one is talking about what that might be.” And, at the Havana Note, a piece by Tom Garofalo, coincides with many points on Brazil made by Mark Weisbrot yesterday. The specific focus of Garofalo’s piece is Lula’s recent trip to the Middle East. He writes, “…Lula and Brazil are…staking out a global role in which they bear the responsibility that comes with power -- including for peacemaking. The world, the President said, needs ‘the intervention of new elements, and we can help with this.’”