With the latest in Nicaragua this morning, AFP reports that parliamentarians reentered the National Assembly Thursday, “surrounded by pro-government demonstrators” and following “a 3-month opposition boycott.” The return of lawmakers came after the president of the parliament, the Sandinista René Nunez, called for legislators to be allowed back into their place of work. And, says the AFP, the legislative session of some two hours, “went off without incidents,” even as protestors continued their demonstrations outside.
Two pieces of legislation (Confidencial says three) were approved during Thursday’s deliberation: one, a law authorizing the withdrawal of Nicaraguan troops from Venezuela’s bicentennial celebrations; and two, a pair of economic loans from the Inter-American Development Bank and the Central American Economic Integration Bank.
The FSLN proclaimed the events of Thursday a major success (a “victory for el pueblo”) as the party has long been critical of opposition groups who they say were paralyzing legislative activities. There have been no immediate reports about whether or not the opposition has the votes necessary to override Ortega’s controversial presidential decree which extended the mandates of two pro-FSLN judges on the Supreme Court. As Time’s Tim Rogers reports from Managua, it was that event which sparked the latest round of tensions this week. But, Rogers continues, “At the heart of the crisis is Ortega's effort to remain in power, even if it means sacrificing the budding democracy that the Sandinista Revolution helped plant 20 years ago.” Time retells how divisions have grown between the ruling FSLN and the opposition, starting with 2008 municipal elections in which the Sandinista party was accused of carrying out voter fraud. And, the magazine concludes: “Regardless of how it ends, the latest crisis has shown that Nicaragua's rickety democracy, 20 years in the making, could come down like a Jenga tower.”
For a counter to the argument that Nicaragua is on the verge of collapse, Chuck Kaufman of the Nicaragua Network/Alliance for Global Justice has a response. He argues that Ortega’s decision to extend the terms of office Supreme Court justices and other officials was “a last ditch effort to maintain a functioning national government.” And while some say the Ortega government could fall the way of Honduras (of June 2009), Kaufman says the Nicaraguan military has maintained “absolute neutrality” since 1990, making an undemocratic ouster of the Ortega government highly unlikely.
In other news this Friday morning:
· The LA Times’ Chris Kraul interviews Colombia’s spy chief, Felipe Munoz, who is trying to reform the country’s “scandal-ridden” DAS intelligence agency. “[DAS] officials have been accused of placing illegal wiretaps, conducting smear campaigns and even conspiring to commit murder,” writes Kraul.
“Two of the last four DAS directors have been sent to jail. Names of DAS operatives surfaced recently in connection with the assassinations of presidential candidates two decades ago. U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said last week that U.S. assistance to DAS was being suspended indefinitely.”
But Munoz, a lifelong technocrat, seems intent on restructuring the agency by breaking down parts of DAS and “re-branding” it with a new name. See the full, short interview here.
· In Paraguay, President Fernando Lugo asked his Congress to declare a “state of emergency” in five northern departments of the country, effectively imposing military rule in the area where the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP)—a left wing guerrilla group – is increasingly active. The Senate rejected Lugo’s initial request but, says BBC Mundo, it approved a very similar bill late Thursday which will begin a 30 day period of military presence in northern Paraguay. [The last time a “state of emergency” was declared in Paraguay was 2002]. On Wednesday, the EPP killed a police officer and three workers while attacking a farm to steal animals.
· A few notes from US reporting on Venezuela this morning. First, Reuters writes that eight drug labs near the Colombian border were raided by Venezuelan counter-narcotics forces Thursday. Some 4.5 tons of cocaine were seized the process. “This is one of the most important and biggest operations against illegal trafficking gangs in our nation,” said Interior Minister Tareck El-Aissami. A former Venezuelan general denounced the Chavez government Thursday, saying Cuban troops are increasingly active in the training and intelligence activities of the Venezuelan military. A new Pentagon report sent to Congress this week apparently claims the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is present in Venezuela. This according to AFP, which got access to declassified sections of a report on US military strategy regarding Iran.
· The New York Times profiles financier Roger Altman, a former assistant Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, who has made multiple trips to Haiti delivering some $140,000 worth of medical supplies to the country.
· The US State Dept. says Michael Posner, Ass’t. Sec. for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor is finishing a trip to Colombia and Mexico today.
· In Guatemala, Reuters reports that the government has handed over military documents containing important evidence related to the genocidal massacre of Guatemalan peasants under the dictatorship of Efraín Rios Montt in 1982 and 1983. “These documents paint a picture of command responsibility,” says Andrew Hudson of the Washington-based group Human Rights First. “When put together they show Rios Montt and the top commanders were aware of and were directing a policy which the United Nations says constituted genocide.”
· In Uruguay, former foreign minister, Juan Carlos Blanco, was sentenced to 20 years in prison this week for the role he played in the forced disappearance and murder of schoolteacher Elena Quinteros in 1976.
· This week’s Economist highlights the brewing dispute over a massive hydroelectric project in the Brazilian Amazon. According to the magazine, the project illustrates the difficulty the Brazilian government is having balancing environmental demands with the desire for growth.
· Infolatam has an interesting piece about the “dilemmas of the Latin American Left.” The piece looks at the ideologically diverse coalitions of Mauricio Funes’s FMLN in El Salvador and José Mujica’s Frente Amplio in Uruguay, specifically. Funes has had to govern with frequent support from the Right as the FMLN has “voted against him in various occasions” while Mujica has differed with the Frente Amplio coalition he represents over whether or not to aggressively seek the annulment of a 1980s amnesty law.
· Finally, a few opinions. Evo Morales pens a piece in the LA Times about the people’s climate summit which concluded yesterday in Bolivia. One of the most notable outcomes of the summit, says Morales: an agreement to begin collectively drafting a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, which “will establish a legal framework for protecting our increasingly threatened natural environment and raising the global consciousness about Mother Earth.” In the Miami Herald, Marifeli Stable-Perez says Brazil is key to curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Comparing Brazil and Venzuela’s relations with Iran, she argues: “Venezuela and Brazil represent two different approaches to Iran: one ideological, the other pragmatic. Tehran is courting both in an all-out diplomatic initiative against the isolation that the United States in particular seeks.” She concludes,
“Since 2000, Russia, China, India and Brazil have emerged as international players. The United States should see Brazil more like it does the other three emerging powers. But it's harder: Brazil is in the Americas. Let's hope that the United States and Brazil do better this time than they did in the 1990s with the Free Trade of the Americas.”
Finally, at FP’s Shadow Government, new contributor Michael Magan writes on Hugo Chavez and the recent ALBA meeting in Caracas. In short, Magan argues, ALBA is only as good as the Venezuelan economy and high world oil prices. He too compares and contrasts Brazil’s economic decisions with those of Venezuela.
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