Embattled Haitian President Rene Preval arrives in Washington today and will ask US lawmakers for over $1 billion in aid to help his country rebuild. The Miami Herald, who interviewed Preval over the weekend, says the Haitian president will also press the US to continue supporting the immediate needs of the country, as frustration rises about how little of the monies pledged thus far have gone directly to the Haitian government.
The trip to Washington will be Preval’s first since the Jan. 12 quake and comes three weeks before international representatives gather in New York for a UN conference which is expected to define the terms of international assistance to Haiti. “What's most important is the philosophy of the reconstruction,” Preval tells the paper, adding “it's not just reconstruct Port-au-Prince. It's rebuild Haiti.” For its part, the US Congress is currently working on the passage of an emergency spending package for Haiti—a bill Sec. of State Hillary Clinton said she expects to come up for a vote in Congress “in the next few weeks.” This after the US has already spent an estimated $712 million on relief efforts thus far ($427 million via USAID and $285 million through DOD). Additionally, the US Congress will be taking up another Haiti-related resolution Wednesday, which “presses lenders to forgive the country's debt and distribute any new aid in the form of grants.” But some international aid experts say this will be just one small piece of the larger assistance Haiti is going to need moving forward. “Haiti will need far more long-term development assistance and trade income than debt relief,” Thomas Hart of the ONE campaign recently told Congress. “Debt cancellation is a small but important piece of a complex puzzle.”
In other Haiti news this weekend, the Wall Street Journal has a fascinating piece about the continued absence of the Haitian state in the country’s burgeoning tent cities. In particular, the piece looks at the creation of how social committees have formed within the camps “to secure food, water and supplies in high demand from international aid organization.” “We knew we wouldn't receive any assistance unless we formed a committee,” says Yasmine Beaupin, a 38 year old hairdresser-turned-president of the Impasse Osseille encampment which is home to more than 2,000 displaced Haitians. “There is no government but us,” Beaupin continues in describing the formation of a six person executive committee in the camp which oversees three sub committees representing different sectors of the camp. The Miami Herald also reports on how rural Haitians are pushing for decentralization of resources and power away from Port-au-Prince; there’s news on the mass exit of US troops from the country as UN peacekeepers and the Haitian police take over security duties; other reports examine the exodus of emergency relief doctors, the New York Times has a piece focusing on the future of Haitian youth and the ever-more unlikely prospect of putting children back in school by April 1; and the Washington Post reports on the monumental task of knocking down crumbling buildings around Haiti before rebuilding. That process of rubble removal, says the Post, could take as long as one year and cost upwards of $1 billion itself.
To other stories this weekend:
· After speaking at the US-backed “Pathways to Prosperity” meeting on democracy and open markets in Costa Rica, Hillary Clinton ended her five-day tour of Latin America Friday with what the New York Times calls a “lightning trip” to Guatemala. There she promised Central American presidents more help in the fight against drug cartels, although few specifics were discussed on the form that support might take. The Washington Post highlights Ms. Clinton’s emphasis on “weeding out corruption,” particularly after last week’s arrest of Guatemala’s national police chief and anti-drug czar. Clinton also called on more countries to reestablish relations with Honduras, saying the US would be restoring more than $30 million in both military and development assistance that was suspended in the wake of the June coup [The IMF also announced this weekend it too would be restoring its relationship with the government of Pepe Lobo, allowing Honduras to access $160 million in previously frozen funds]. It’s this call which is drawing criticism from some human rights advocates, progressives, and a group of nine members of congress who wrote to Sec. Clinton last week. In The Progressive Matthew Rothschild points out that Human Rights Watch wrote last week that abuses against anti-coup activists continue unabated. Rothschild writes: “Hillary Clinton’s embrace of Pepe Lobo is a disgrace, and it undermines President Obama’s rhetoric about establishing ‘a new chapter’ in U.S.-Latin American relations.”
· Meanwhile, the target of the June coup, former Honduran president Mel Zelaya began his own tour of the region last week. His first stopover: Caracas where the Venezuela-led regional energy consortium, PetroCaribe, named Mr. Zelaya the first head of its newly formed “political council.” Venezuelan foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, described the “political council” as a body designed for the “defense of the independence and democracy in the PetroCaribe continent.” PetroCaribe currently includes 18 member states who are allowed to buy up to 185,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela at a discount rate. Members only pay 40-80% upfront with the remainder paid over 25 years at 1% interest. Additionally, says the report, “members can pay part of the cost with other products ‘in trade’ to Venezuela, such as bananas, rice, and sugar.” In his spare time, Zelaya will also be penning a memoir about the coup.
· On Chile, the New York Times says this morning that 72% of Santiago residents are dissatisfied with President Michelle Bachelet’s response to the quake in Concepción, saying the president was “late and inefficient in delivering aid and in re-establishing order.” The poll numbers were published in Santiago’s conservative daily El Mercurio this weekend. In an interview with the Times, published Saturday, Bachelet denied charges that her government had hesitated in the wake of the disaster. In particular, Bachelet rejected charges that her own difficult past with the Chilean military affected her decision to call on the army to take over internal security. This is “speculation that has nothing to do with reality,” Bachelet said. “Here there was no delay. I don’t have any problems, particularly ideological problems, making decisions that warrant the armed forces to take control of certain functions, while civilian authorities take control of others.” Also, reports this weekend about how much written about “looters” were returning stolen goods in and around Concepción so as to avoid being arrested by Chilean police who granted a brief amnesty to those who returned what they had stolen. And some $59 million was raised for disaster relief during a benefit concert held in Santiago Saturday.
· In the Miami Herald, a report has one take on the legacy of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, in a quite positive light. His “singular style may have changed Colombia politics and policies for good,” says the paper. “By routing rebels from major urban areas, convincing paramilitaries to demobilize, the violence that had Colombia on the brink of becoming a failed state abated. His can-do attitude in a country where many had been convinced that defeating leftist rebels and reining in paramilitaries was impossible won Uribe the gratitude of millions,” says journalist Sibylla Brodzinsky.
· Meanwhile, at the Washington Office on Latin America, a press release from the International Pre-Electoral Observation Mission led by various US and European NGOs, paints a quite different picture of the country. “The objective of the mission was to compile from the various sectors that form part of the electoral process, civil society and governmental institutions their concerns and analysis on the forthcoming March [legislative] elections,” the release begins. And through a month of investigation, the Mission writes, there is “alarm over the human rights situation in the country and the grave violations of these rights on the part of legal and illegal armed groups and narco-traffickers to life in Antioquia, Santander, Córdoba and Valle del Cauca,” fears about freedom of expression and electoral crimes, and a “huge gap between the formal aspects of the society found in Colombian institutions and the daily reality of the general public.” A full report from the Mission is forthcoming.
· Other pieces to note today, an interesting LA Times report on how a fund created under NAFTA to help Mexican farmers compete with the US agriculturists is being siphoned off by drug traffickers. “Today, the fund -- far from helping the neediest -- is providing large financial subsidies to the families of notorious drug traffickers and several senior government officials, including the agriculture minister,” says the LAT. Indeed, the Procampo program’s failure, argue many Mexican officials, are driving many subsistence farmers into the production of illegal crops, particularly marijuana and opium poppy. And, an LAT investigation discovers, one of the program’s biggest recipients have been allies of traffickers like Victor Emilio Cazares, a close associate of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman who received more than $100,000 from Procampo to subsidize his raising of cattle last year.
· The Catholic Church in Mexico is attacking Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard for his positions on crime, public transportation, and now abortion and gay marriage. A total of just 59 Mexican soldiers were convicted or sentenced for human rights abuses between December 2006 and February 2010, the Mexican Defense Secretariat recently announced. For some perspective, the National Human Rights Commission has received 3,430 complaints about military rights abuses over that time period.
· And three opinions this weekend. In the Miami Herald, an editorial says Brazil’s position on Iran is wrong, writing that Lula’s words “give Tehran's mullahs solace and comfort.” Mary Anastasia O’Grady at the WSJ writes on corruption, foreign aid, and former Salvadoran president Tony Saca. And an opinion by former DR ambassador to the OAS, Roberto Alvarez, says José Miguel Insulza deserves a second term at the OAS. Alvarez writes:
“Insulza's record should be the basis of his reelection. He brought the OAS a renewed leadership, allowing it to play a leading role in, among others: the resolution of conflicts, such as between Colombia and Ecuador and Guatemala and Belize, and in Haiti, Nicaragua and Bolivia; the sending of successful observer missions to more than 50 elections throughout the hemisphere; and the promotion of greater regional cooperation aimed at reducing illegal drug trafficking.”
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