"Securing" the Caribbean Basin

After a five-day showdown in West Kingston between Jamaican security forces and supporters of accused drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke, at least 70 have been killed, 560 have been detained, and reports of “indiscriminate force” continue to rise. Jamaican police have yet to find their suspect, Dudus Coke, however. And on Thursday the police issued a public plea, asking that Mr. Coke and his brother turn themselves in peacefully. This according to the New York Times this morning. [More good Jamaica analysis at Foreign Policy, the BBC, and the Kojo Nnamdi Show with Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance and Johanna Mendelsohn-Forman of CSIS].

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., officials from the 15 CARICOM member nations, the Dominican Republic, and several non-Caribbean partner nations gathered Thursday for the pre-planned launching of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI). In AFP’s words, the CBSI is “aimed at boosting regional security by fighting drug-traffickers and other transnational criminal gangs” in the Caribbean. [Notably excluded from the invitation, as the Center for Democracy in the Americas points out, was Cuba]. The SBSI is intended to complement the Mérida Initiative, launched in 2008, and according to Ass’t. Sec. of State, Arturo Valenzuela, the convener of Thursday’s meetings, the US has pledged $45 million to the new security plan.

“Beyond narrow police and military responses, we must find ways to incorporate the whole range of local, national and regional institutions, multilateral organizations and civil society into our efforts to combat rising crime rates,” Valenzuela said.

The State Dept. also released a new “fact sheet” on its commitment to “citizen safety” in the Western Hemisphere this week. DOS claims that the CBSI, the Mérida Initiative, the Central America Regional Security initiative, and the Colombian Strategic Development initiative all embody an approach to citizen safety that focuses on “making advances at the neighborhood level while simultaneously countering emerging transnational threats.” As a new post at Just the Facts adds, “by covering several different regions of Latin America, the Obama administration believes it will ‘mitigate any balloon effect - criminal spillover resulting from successful reductions in drug trafficking and transnational crime elsewhere in the region.’”

But coming back to Jamaica, it appears that may be easier said than done. As the Economist suggests, as long as “outsiders’ demand for drugs” continues, there exist serious risks that progress may be short lived.

Below the headline today:

· Colombians head to the polls Sunday for what will likely be the first round of two to elect a new president [if no candidate wins over 50%, a second round will be held in mid-June]. I’ll have coverage of the results Tuesday, after the Memorial Day weekend, but for now the latest on where things stand going into the vote – still a statistical dead heat according to the most recent polls. The Wall Street Journal says the country “ponders two futures” with Sunday’s vote. Here’s how the paper frames it:

“They can pick a macho-style candidate who promises to finish what Mr. Uribe started. Or they can pick a philosopher who vows to clean up Colombia's politics, focuses on issues like education and cries in public.”

The AP poses its own binary. “The brainy outsider vs. the Uribe torchbearer,” is how the wire service sees it. Interestingly, the AP writes the following which I have not read in coverage of the Colombian election thus far:

“Mockus recently told an interviewer he thought Colombia should follow the Costa Rican model and dissolve its military. Backtracking later, he said he wasn't actually proposing dismantling Colombia's armed forces, still locked in a war with the FARC, which issued a communique Thursday calling on Colombians to boycott the vote.”

In an interview with Spain’s El País, Juan Manuel Santos tries to differentiate himself from his former boss, Mr. Uribe. “You have to take into account that I am not Uribe,” he tells the paper. “If Colombians are tired of a certain style of government [represented by [Uribe], they can remain calm, because I will bring my own [governing style].” At Global Post, Mauricio Cárdenas of the Brookings Institution argues that no matter Sunday’s results, the electoral campaign indicates that Colombians desire some sort of “change.” Interestingly, he is quite skeptical of Mockus winning a second-round vote. And with a Left perspective of the elections, Forrest Hylton, professor of political science at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, sees many similarities between the Mockus campaign and that of Barack Obama in the US. Besides the dichotomy of Santos/Uribe-style “democratic security” and Mockus’s “democratic legality,” Hylton writes that the vote will help answer the following question: “Is Colombia a democracy, in which citizens-voters decide the outcomes of elections, or is it what Barrington Moore, Jr., called a ‘semi-authoritarian parliamentary formation,’ in which overlapping networks of businesspeople, professional politicians, and regionally-rooted mafias determine said outcomes?”

· In Peru, the BBC reports that indigenous leader Alberto Pizango was released, one day after being arrested upon his return from 11 months of political asylum in Nicaragua. However, a Peruvian judge said Pizango still faces charges of conspiracy and sedition at an upcoming trial. The government holds Pizango responsible for leading protests in Bagua last year against extractive industries in the Amazon region of Northern Peru. The Peruvian alternative media outlet Prensa Alternativa has more on the press conference Pizango gave following his release yesterday. Pizango was joined by his lawyer, Dr. Marcos Barreto, AIDESEP vice-president Daisy Zapata who was recently in New York and Washington D.C. to talk about indigenous struggles against extractive industries in the Amazon, and the actress Qorianka Kilcher.

· US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced she’ll be heading to Ecuador from June 6 to 8, meeting with President Rafael Correa. Ecuador’s El Universo says both bi-lateral relations and regional relations [with UNASUR] will be on the agenda – relations which Ecuadorean foreign minister Ricardo Patino says must be “de-narcotized.” The trip will come after the OAS’s annual meetings in Peru and follows Ass’t. Sec. of State Arturo Valenzuela’s visit with Correa last April.

· At the Huffington Post, journalist Jeremy Kryt files a recent piece on Honduras, which looks at on-going debates over a writing a new constitution. The issue was used by the coup-backers as justification for the June 28, 2009 coup against Manuel Zelaya, but as Kryt writes: “thousands of Honduran citizens are signing their names to petitions demanding a Constitutional Assembly - and a series of massive, nation-wide demonstrations are planned for June 28, [2010] including a peaceful march on the national Congress building in the capital of Tegucigalpa, to present the petitions and demand a national referendum on the issue.”

· The Economist examines how Mexico’s economic recovery is being hampered by the rising influence of organized crime in its manufacturing corridor. “Now that the American economy has stirred back to life, Mexico’s factories are whirring into action as well,” the magazine reports. “The country’s GDP grew by 4.3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010, beating forecasts. Industrial production rose by 7.6% in the year to March—the largest annual increase in nearly four years … But those businesses have a new hurdle to surmount: the country’s raging drug ‘war,’” which appears to be scaring away new foreign investment.

· At NACLA, a good piece by Prof. Kevin Gallagher from the most recent Report on the Americas looks at deepening Chinese-Latin American economic relations.

· Gunmen shot and killed a police chief in Northern Brazil this week, as he did a radio interview about the threat of drug trafficking in the region, from his car. “Clayton Leao Chaves, police chief in Camacari, was just finishing his interview with journalists on Bahia state's Lider FM station when the hosts and thousands of listeners heard the sound of gunshots and his wife's cries,” says one report on the shooting.

· The Obama administration unveiled its first “National Security Strategy” Thursday. Among the few Latin America mentions, the administration says it is working to build “deeper and more effective partnerships with other key centers of influence” like Brazil –a country whose “leadership” the US claims to “welcome.” The US, however, says it wants to take that relationship “beyond dated North-South divisions to pursue progress on bilateral, hemispheric, and global issues.” That may be more of a challenge in practice than in theory, as differences over Iran, for example, demonstrate. As Mercopress reports, Lula da Silva called on Southern allies Mexico and UNASUR this week to support the Iran enrichment agreement he and the Turks struck in Tehran almost two weeks ago.

· Finally, opinions for the weekend. Author Chris Salewicz writes in the Wall Street Journal on the “drug rebellion” in Tivoli Gardens. Andres Oppenheimer talked with Antanas Mockus recently and the charge of some critics who say Mockus’s policy prescriptions may be better suited and more realistic for Finland than Colombia. Like Mauricio Cárdenas, Oppenheimer is not very convinced Mockus can win a likely second-round vote either. Arturo Valenzuela, also in the Miami Herald, has more on the CBSI launch yesterday – what he calls “an important step forward for the prosperity, security and liberty of the region.” In the Washington Post, Jennifer Bernal-Garcia of the Center for a New American Security, says sending more National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border “smells of mission creep” if a broader US strategy for countering the instability created by drug violence and organized crime is not articulated first. And the New York Times editorial board also weighs in on the Mexico border “troop surge” arguing that “[A]dding a thousand or so border troops won’t stop the cartels or repeal the law of supply and demand. It won’t lessen American addicts’ hunger for drugs or Mexican traffickers’ appetite for sold-in-America guns.”

Amnesty: Fight Against Impunity Must Continue

“In recent years (…) a growing number of Latin American countries have made important advances towards tackling impunity, recognizing that reconciliation is an empty concept unless it is built on truth, justice and reparation” (…) But “despite important progress in a growing number of emblematic cases of past human rights violations, justice for most of the hundreds of thousands of victims of past human rights violations remained elusive.”

That description of ongoing impunity in the Americas is how Amnesty International [see link for full list of country reports] begins its summary of the human rights situation in the region over the past year – part of the group’s annual human rights survey of 159 total countries.

Beyond impunity, AI cites public security shortcomings as another principal concern in the Americas:

“The public security situation affecting many countries continued to cause great concern. Murder rates for women and men continued to rise, in particular in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. Millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean’s poorest communities were plagued by violent criminal gangs and repressive, discriminatory and corrupt responses by law enforcement officials. At the same time, members of the security forces, especially the police, were required to work in ways that often put their own lives at risk.”

Further worries about an arms build-up in the region [AI: “A general trend in 2009 towards an arms build-up in the region led to concern about the potential impact on human rights for people already living in fragile or non-existent security.”]; “deep and persistent social inequalities,” especially with respect to access to education, income levels, health, and basic services; and threats against indigenous groups also get significant attention. Amnesty’s conclusion:

“Despite the progress made in an important number of emblematic cases of past human rights violations, the legal, jurisdictional and political obstacles that have helped entrench impunity in the region, remained formidable in 2009.

However, across the region, victims of human rights violations, their families and human rights defenders supporting them continued to defy intimidation, threats and harassment and campaigned vigorously to hold governments and armed groups to their obligations to respect international and domestic human rights standards.”

Speaking at the release of the report in London, AI’s interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone highlighted Latin America’s trailblazing role in cases of international justice. “We're very encouraged by the trend for example in Latin America where we had three former heads of states brought to justice from Peru, Uruguay and Argentina,” noted Cordone.

Below the headline:

· Violence continued in the Kingston neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens Wednesday as the Jamaican military and police continue their search for accused drug baron Christopher “Dudus” Coke. The government recently announced that parts of the city would remain under a state of emergency for at least a month. And on a news conference Wednesday, the New York Times reports that officials were asked whether they had made any sort of contact with Mr. Coke. “Did the government, someone asked, have any idea at all where Mr. Coke might be?” The police spokesman’s response: “For all purposes we are not speaking on the matter.” The silence, the paper says, has “given rise to a multitude of theories and hard questions,” including the possibility that Coke has already fled the island. More than 500 Jamaicans have been arrested by the police over the last four days while the official death toll now nears 50. According to the AP, PM Bruce Golding has promised an independent investigation into civilian deaths, although just when such an investigation might begin is unclear. In a separate report, the Times also looks at how the case against Coke was made in New York City where Coke’s “operatives send him part of their drug proceeds and buy guns that they ship to him.”

· US Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and George LeMieux (R-FL) are leading a group of 12 Republican senators petitioning the US State Dept. to review Venezuela’s status as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” In a letter to Sec. of State Clinton, Ensign writes:

“It’s no secret to the American people that Venezuela wishes harm to the United States,” said Ensign. “What is a secret is how many more ties to terrorist organizations and State Sponsors of Terrorism does Venezuela need to be declared a State Sponsor of Terrorism. The letter I drafted with Senator LeMieux will ask that the State Department reassess their handling of this state to protect our national security.”

For his part, George LeMieux says “Hugo Chavez’s relationships with Iran and other foreign terrorist organizations continue to grow and pose a serious threat to our hemisphere.” Since 2006, the U.S. has designated Venezuela as “not cooperating fully” with U.S. antiterrorism efforts. That designation places a prohibition on American arms sales. But an upgrade to “State Sponsor of Terrorism” status would “cause a prohibition on American arms sales, a prohibition of American economic assistance, and place several restrictions on bilateral trade” with the country. The co-authors of the letter include: Robert Bennett (R-UT), Scott Brown (R-MA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Jim Bunning (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), James Risch (R-ID), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

· In Peru, indigenous leader Alberto Pizango was arrested upon returning to his country from an 11-month political asylum in Nicaragua. Pizango is being charged by the Peruvian government with sedition and rebellion, the Guardian reports, stemming from his role in organizing protests against oil and gas exploration in Bagua almost one year ago. Pizango, a leader of the indigenous group Aidesep, was accompanied on the flight to Peru by the American actor Q'orianka Kilcher, whose father is an ethnic Quechua artist. Before his departure, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega asked President Alan Garcia to “guarantee Pizango's safety and not imprison him” upon his return. García’s stiff response, “Here we respect rights,” makes it seem unlikely that the request will be honored.

· The New York Times has more on the release of American Lori Berenson from a Peruvian jail, almost 15 years after being convicted of providing aid to the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

· In Argentina, meanwhile, BBC Mundo says police arrested Colombian model and suspected narcotrafficker, Angie Sanclemente Valencia, on Wednesday.

· In a letter printed in Colombia’s El Tiempo, Santiago Uribe, brother of President Alvaro Uribe, denied having links to paramilitary groups in the early 1990s – a response to a Washington Post report filed over the weekend. “I emphatically reject the article published by The Washington Post,” with which “they are trying to revive false and loathsome accusations from long ago against me and my family,” the younger Uribe wrote.

· In Haiti, the New York Times says the UN and Haiti will establish a joint commission looking into the Jan. 19 alleged massacre of prison inmates in Les Cayes. The announcement comes after an article in The New York Times on Sunday examined the shooting deaths.

· Bloomberg reports on a new law in Bolivia which allows the president to “suspend regional opponents from office if they’re accused of a crime.” The new legislation, Bloomberg says, “boosts criticism” of President Evo Morales “that he’s using the courts to consolidate power.” Three of the country’s nine incoming governors, all Morales opponents, currently face charges brought by the government.

· And the AFP looks at the FMLN’s first year in power in El Salvador, writing that 2009 has been defined by a divergence between the party and its nationally popular leader, President Mauricio Funes. According to analyst Salvador Samayoa, “The first year of government has been marked by the contradiction between the president and the party he represents. This, without a doubt, is the most notable political fact of the year.”

· Finally a number of opinions. Two differing thoughts on the truth commission process in Honduras, one from Michael Lisman in the Guardian argues that the commission should be given chance while Daniel Altschuler at AQ is decidedly more skeptical. At the Huffington Post, the International Crisis Group’s Mark Schneider posts his statement on recovery in Haiti, which he presented to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. Jennifer Jeffs, president of the Canadian International Council, writes on Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s visit this week to Canada, calling for the two countries to tighten their relationship further. And in the International Herald Tribune, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and his Turkish counterpart call for more international diplomacy, not sanctions, against Iran. The two argue:

“In the presence of deep mutual mistrust there will always be those who display skepticism about the feasibility of any negotiated outcome. But there is now sufficient substance to give negotiations a chance. Missing it may well be regretted for generations to come.”

"Dudus" Coke as Pablo Escobar?

“Jamaica is an increasingly significant transshipment point for cocaine destined for the United States since it is located midway between South America and the United States. Cocaine is primarily smuggled into Jamaica by maritime methods, and the cocaine transshipped through Jamaica often is destined for the Canadian, European, and U.S. markets. Cocaine destined for the United States is usually smuggled from Jamaica to the Bahamas aboard go-fast boats. The cocaine is subsequently smuggled to the Florida coast using go-fast boats, pleasure craft, and fishing vessels.”

That’s the most extensive US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) mention I’ve been able to track down thus far describing Jamaica’s role in the global networks of drug trafficking, which reach from the Andes, through Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and West Africa and on to North America and Europe. The Caribbean island is at the center of the story this week, engulfed in violence over the last three days as state security forces face off with supporters of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a notorious drug baron, who has controls large sections of West Kingston. The latest from the AP is that state forces have gained a “tenuous hold” on the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood where Coke is holed up.

The New York Times’ Marc Lacey begins his reporting this morning saying the situation – which began after the government of PM Bruce Golding finally attempted to arrest Coke per an extradition request from the US – highlights “a convoluted political system in which Jamaican politicians and crime bosses have long teamed up to share power.” In a national address Tuesday, Golding insisted that the crackdown seeks to break this tradition. Here’s Golding, as quoted in the Times:

“This will be a turning point for us as a nation to confront the powers of evil that have penalized the society and earned us the unenviable label as one of the murder capitals of the world.”

But those words seem pretty optimistic given the pervasiveness of Coke’s networks. According to the report, Coke also operates a consulting company that has “earned millions of dollars in government contracts.” A recent indictment handed down by the Justice Department, also indicates that Coke’s Shower Posse gang controls trafficking of that other coke, cocaine, (in addition to marijuana) in New York and various other US cities. And Coke has played an active role in Jamaican politics as well, mobilizing his supporters to vote for politicians from both of Jamaica’s two major parties, including the governing Labor Party of Bruce Golding.

A short blog post by the editors of the Christian Science Monitor [as well as the Wall Street Journal’s coverage], makes a brief comparison between the situations of Jamaica and Mexico. But some are saying the more apt comparison is the Colombia of Pablo Escobar – the drug lord who, unlike most of the current Mexican cartels, became famous for securing popular loyalty through the disbursement of “social services.” “Coke and his gang hand out sandwiches in the streets, send children to school, build medical and community centers – ‘all the things to ingratiate himself that Pablo Escobar used to do in Colombia,’” says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. But unlike Colombia, the US will likely walk a very fine line with Jamaica, knowing that, any action that exacerbates economic troubles, could, in Birns’ words, set off a “large-scale illegal migration of Jamaican nationals to the U.S.” [COHA has more analysis in a recent briefing on Jamaica and the drug trade].

On casualty figures over the last three days, most are reporting somewhere between 25 and 30 civilian deaths on the island. Reports I’ve seen confirm just one security force fatality. The government, meanwhile, is trying to provide reassurance that its operations are not violating the rights of Jamaicans. According to Jamaica’s Education Minister, “This government is one that is big on protecting human rights.” More in two good video reports from Kingston, by Al-Jazeera and the BBC.

Below the headline:

· The New York Times’ top story this morning looks at President Obama’s decision yesterday to send 1200 additional US National Guardsmen to the US-Mexico border. The Washington Post adds that the president also will seek an additional $500 million for law enforcement there in an attempt to combat drug smuggling – this after new demands from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. The new “surge” of troops will be dispatched to four border states, say White House officials. No time frame for their arrival, however, has been set. Rick Nelson, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, calls Tuesday’s announcement a mere “symbolic gesture.” Currently 340 National Guard members are stationed at the border. And the Post says the Obama plan “echoes 2006's Operation Jump Start, in which President George W. Bush devoted 6,000 guardsmen to a two-year commitment in support of the Border Patrol.” In Mexico, a statement from the Mexican Foreign Relations Minister, Patricia Espinosa, says Mexico “trusts that the National Guardsmen will strengthen the fight against organized crime, in accordance with their duties, and will not carry out activities related to the implementation of immigration laws.” More good questions about the surge from Boz.

· Also from Mexico, the AP reports that federal police arrested the mayor of Cancún, Mexico yesterday, on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, and involvement in organized crime. The detained PRI politician, Gregorio Sanchez, had taken a leave of absence from the Cancun mayoral post to run for governor of Quintana Roo state. But, officials say, Sanchez has been offering information and protection to both the Zetas and the Beltran Leyva cartel, active in his state. The case may be the first time a gubernatorial candidate has been arrested on drug charges. However, former Quintana Roo governor Mario Villanueva was extradited to the United States just this month. He faces charges of conspiring to import hundreds of tons of cocaine and launder millions of dollars in bribe payments through Lehman Brothers in New York.

· I am trying to get access to a “subscription-only” copy of a new New Yorker investigative piece out this week by William Finnegan on La Familia cartel. But for now, I link to an interview with Finnegan on the magazine’s site. Finnegan talks “about life under La Familia rule, the cartel’s religious and political rhetoric, and the steps Mexico would have to take to combat organized crime.”

· In The New Republic, Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, director of entrepreneurial development programs for the Sucre municipal government in Caracas, has a piece entitled “Wiki-Constitutionalism,” which is certainly worth a look. The piece looks at the history of redrafting and amending constitutions in Latin America – a trend the author sees associates with the region’s “caudillismo.” Here’s an excerpt:

“Not only are presidents exceptionally powerful [in Latin America] … but, in addition, Latin American leaders have a nasty habit of rewriting their countries' constitutions more than anywhere else in the world.

This is a phenomenon I call "Wiki-constitutionalism." In Latin America, constitutions are changed with great frequency and unusual ease (though not through any open-source collaborative process), as if they were Wikipedia pages. The evidence is staggering: The Dominican Republic has had 32 separate constitutions since its independence in 1821. Venezuela follows close behind with 26, Haiti has had 24, Ecuador 20, and Bolivia recently passed its seventeenth. In fact, over half of the 21 Latin American nations have had at least ten constitutions while, in the rest of the world, only Thailand (17), France (16), Greece (13), and Poland (10) have reached double digits.”

· One of those leaders Lansberg-Rodriguez is critical of, his own President Hugo Chavez, has just launched a new blog to match his very popular Twitter account (432,000 followers!). It can be read at chavez.org.ve. – I recommend browsing the photos.

· Meanwhile, the AP says Chavez’s top anti-corruption chief, Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian, has blocked the candidacies of two former presidential candidates, Manuel Rosales and former Sucre state Gov. Ramon Martinez, who appeared on the opposition’s list of National Assembly candidates. Both men have been accused of “irregularities” during their time in public office.

· Both IPS and EFE have picked up the new WOLA/LAWG/CIP report on US Latin American policy in new pieces out today.

· The UN says it will investigate the extrajudicial killings in a Haitian prison, reported in a New York Times investigative piece over the weekend.

· The Miami Herald has analysis of political prisoner talks which have begun between the Catholic Church and the Castro government. The paper writes:

“The meetings with Cardinal Jaime Ortega are the first time in memory the communist government has negotiated with a national, independent organization like the Cuban church, on an island where authorities try to control virtually all activity. They also represent Castro's most important political shift since succeeding his ailing brother, Fidel, two years ago.

· Finally, some opinions. The Hudson Institute’s Jaime Daremblum, in the Weekly Standard, along with Tom Friedman in the New York Times, criticize Lula for his attempt at mediation (read “embrace” by Daremblum) in Iran. In World Affairs, Soli Ozel, professor of international relations and political science at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, provides a counter to those arguments. As does CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot at the Huffington Post and Folha do Sao Paulo. Weisbrot’s argument is about more than Iran, however. “Over the past decade, Latin America has become vastly more independent of the United States than it has ever been - and its people, especially the poor and the majority, have clearly benefited. And as the Brazil/Turkey diplomacy shows, a multi-polar world will help reduce the risk of war,” argues Weisbrot. And in editorials, the New York Times calls for an investigation into the Haitian prison murders while the Miami Herald comments on Jamaica.

Paraguay: Thirty-Day Militarization Ends, Zero EPP Arrests

A 30-day state of exception in Paraguay ended Monday and the government of Fernando Lugo has nothing to show for it. Lugo announced the militarization of northern Paraguay in an attempted crackdown on the Ejercito del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP) guerrilla group, blamed for the murder of four individuals in late April. But without apprehending a single member of the EPP, BBC Mundo reports that Lugo will not seek to extend “Operation Py'aguapy,” as the military mission has been called. Rather, Lugo indicated Monday that he’d “look for a legal framework” that keeps the military in charge of security in areas where the EPP is believed to be active, without imposing a formal state of emergency.

As others have written, figuring out what -- and how pervasive -- the EPP is continues to be a subject of considerable debate in Paraguay. The organization is known for carrying out robberies, murders, and kidnappings and has been operating in the country for about a decade, according to the BBC. Dubbed a “terrorist” group by some, a criminal band by others, the EPP may count on as few as 25 active members. And the inability of 3,300 military troops to find a single EPP rebel fighter in 30 days has led some Paraguayans to believe the guerrilla group is more phantom than real. [Some in the country have even compared the group to the Guaraní mythological character Yasy-Yatere who, in the BBC’s words, “roams about while people siesta, and lures naughty children into the woods with a whistle.”]

A real threat or not, “failure” could have serious political consequences for left-leaning President Fernando Lugo, continually opposed by conservatives in the country who control the Congress and much of the economy in the South American country. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.

Below the headline, more stories today:

· The nebulous character of a group that appears to have kidnapped former PAN leader Diego Fernandez de Cevallos is also considered in a piece by William Booth in the Washington Post this morning. Booth writes that “the disappearance has rattled the political and business class [in Mexico], stoking fears that the war against powerful crime syndicates might be escalating to more dangerous heights, where elites become targets for the drug cartels.” And “because the Mexican attorney general has declared a virtual news blackout, the Internet swirls with vitriol and rumors.” On Monday, the attorney general’s office pulled out of the investigative process all-together, at the behest of Fernandez de Cevallo’s family, who says it prefers to handle negotiations with the alleged kidnappers on its own. But who are the culprits? Cartel members? A handful of armed guerrillas that may still be active in the country? Common criminals? Nobody has much of an answer still on that question.

· Also in Mexico, Infolatam reports that President Felipe Calderón called on all 32 states in Mexico to proceed more rapidly with reform of their justice systems and their fight against corruption, as outlined under legislation approved in 2008. Seven states, the president said, have already implemented initial justice reforms, but Calderón insists, if corruption remains endemic in ministerial bodies, the judiciary, and the police system, the reforms “will have no impact.” The words came as Calderón kicked of the Second Justice and Security Forum in Mexico City.

· An AP report from yesterday looks at the rising movement of an “ultra-potent” form of heroin from Colombia, Asia, and increasingly Mexico into the US. It’s called “black tar,” says the wire service, which offers the following grizzly description: it “sells for as little as $10 a bag and is so pure it can kill unsuspecting users instantly, sometimes before they even remove the syringe from their veins.” The AP argues the drug could be the second-coming of crack. “Authorities are concerned that the potency and price of the heroin from Mexico and Colombia could widen the drug's appeal, just as crack did for cocaine decades ago.”

· Tensions and violence continue in Kingston, Jamaica as some 1000 police and soldiers “assaulted” a public housing complex occupied by what the AP calls “heavily armed gangsters defending an alleged drug lord.” Christopher “Dudus” Coke is the wanted drug lord holed up in the West Kingston neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens. Coke has been indicted in New York on drug and arms trafficking charges. He’s considered by the U.S. Justice Department to be “one of the world's most dangerous drug lords.” Jamaican authorities reported that two police officers had been killed and at least six wounded since Sunday, and at least one Jamaican soldier was shot dead during Monday's fighting, according to the AP. However, it’s not yet known how many others have been killed inside the barricaded Kingston neighborhood.

· The latest from Honduras includes an Al-Jazeera video report on a hunger strike by two Honduran judges, who appear to have been dismissed by the Supreme Court for their anti-coup politics. Honduras Culture and Politics has coverage of a recent interview President Porfirio Lobo gave to CNN México in which he acknowledged that the events of June 28, 2009 represented a “coup d’etat.” That, says RAJ, is more than what the OAS-backed Truth Commission seems willing to now admit. (In a recent interview with the LA Times, commission head, Eduardo Stein, said the commission now prefers to call June 28 “an alteration of political institutionality,” rather than a “coup”). The AP reports that El Salvador’s Mauricio Funes will seek the reincorporation of Honduras into the Central American Integration System (SICA) at its July meetings. And there are reports of new death threats against some of the anti-coup resistance’s principal leaders, including one-time presidential candidate, Carlos H. Reyes.

· The LA Times has more on the new claims being brought against former FMLN guerrilla leaders Jorge Melendez and Joaquín Villalobos by family members of Salvadoran poet and revolutionary, Roque Dalton. Dalton’s two sons have formally petitioned the attorney general’s office to charge Melendez and Villalobos for the 1975 murder of their father – who at the time was suspected by fellow guerrillas of being a CIA spy.

· The latest poll numbers in Brazil show PT’s Dilma Rouseff tied with opposition leader, Jose Serra at 37% support each [Infolatam has a biographical sketch of third-party Green candidate, Marina Silva, as well, which is worth a look]. Current President Lula da Silva’s approval still stands at an astounding 76%, according to the polling group Datafolha, even as his critics have attacked him for his role in the recent Iran negotiations.

· On Brazil in the world, Mercopress says the country has launched an international public television station for Africa, reaching 49 countries on the continent. And on crime in Rio, Latin America News Dispatch writes on falling drug violence in the city under the new community policing program.

· Time has more on the upcoming presidential vote in Colombia.

· In Trinidad and Tobago, voters appear to have elected the opposition to parliament, making Kamla Persad-Bissessar of the People’s Partnership party the country’s new Prime Minister (and first female leader ever), replacing Patrick Manning.

· In Washington, OAS Sec. General José Miguel Insulza was re-inaugurated this week. Among his promises: making “genuinely multilateral OAS.”

· From WOLA, the Latin America Working Group, and the Center for International Policy, a new report on US relations with Latin America under the Obama administration. The report, entitled “Waiting for Change,” highlights rising military aid to the region, and conversely, a declining US emphasis on human rights. “In 2010, 47 percent of the United States' more than $3 billion in aid to Latin America is going to militaries and police forces,” says Adam Isacson, senior associate for security policy at WOLA and a co-author of the report. “That's the highest proportion in a decade, and it indicates an unbalanced approach. Add to that a new military-basing agreement signed last October with Colombia, and the main face that most of the region is seeing from the Obama administration is a military one.”

· Finally, opinions today. The Institute for Policy Studies’ Manuel Pérez-Rocha assesses Felipe Calderón’s Washington visit at Foreign Policy in Focus. “Calderón’s visit to Washington was yet another sign that the priorities in the U.S.- Mexico relationship haven't changed much since Bush’s days in office,” he argues. Those priorities, Pérez-Rocha argues, continue to be deregulating trade, enforcing intellectual property rights, and guaranteeing ‘energy security in North America’ to meet the energy needs of the United States,” – not human rights and worker rights. The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Alex Main assesses UNASUR as “an emerging geopolitical force,” independent of the US and the OAS. Alexandra Kirby of the Open Society Institute’s Global Drug Policy Program interviews Daniel Mejia of the Economic Development Research Centre at the Universidad de los Andes. The topics of the interview are the drug war and upcoming elections. And Argentina has kicked off its Bicentennial festivities. Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana offers one opinion on the state of Argentine political and social life in The Guardian. In Pagina 12, historian Mario Rapoport takes the opportunity to offer a more historical view.

New Uribe-Paramilitary Links Revealed

Campaigning ahead of next weekend’s first round of presidential voting has wrapped up in Colombia. Two recent polls (here and here) show uribista Juan Manuel Santos still running neck-and-neck with the Green Party’s Antanas Mockus, with neither candidate likely winning the 50% necessary to avoid a second-round. As Infolatam reports, that fact has led to a new series of discussions between Mockus and the left-leaning Polo Democrático Alternativo about a possible second-round alliance (the Polo Democrático’s candidate, Gustavo Petro, will likely finish in a distant third next Sunday) while Santos will no doubt be courting first-round voters of Conservative Noemí Sanin in round two.

An interesting report from AFP looks at the different demographics backing both Mockus and Santos – and the “two Colombias” they represent. Age seems to be one of the most significant points of political division. Mockus has 42% of youth support (ages 18 to 24) compared to Santos’s 30% with the same age group. However, among older voters (54 and older), the numbers are flipped. Forty-three percent support Santos and just 24% back the former Bogotá mayor, Mockus. The report also says an important rural-urban divide splits Santos-Mockus voters (the former largely supporting Santos and the latter Mockus).

And the Washington Post’s Juan Forero has a new piece out this morning which reignites an old issue ahead of Sunday’s vote. The Forero report says new information suggests that the younger brother of outgoing president Alvaro Uribe led a “fearsome paramilitary group in the 1990s … that killed petty thieves, guerrilla sympathizers and suspected subversives.” Juan Carlos Meneses, a former police major in the northern Colombia town of La Carolina, tells the paper that Santiago Uribe trained paramilitary fighters at the family’s Antioquia ranch in the early 1990s [Uribe was formerly a senator and governor of the state before assuming the presidency]. The revelations, the Post writes, “threaten to renew a criminal investigation against Santiago Uribe and raise new questions about the president's past.” Forero was able to speak with the younger Uribe who denies the latest charges, but, the Post writes, “human rights advocates who have first-hand knowledge of Meneses's allegations said his declaration amounts to powerful evidence that should trigger an investigation.” According to Argentine human rights activist, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who has heard Meneses’s full account, the police chief’s claims incriminate not only himself and the brother of the president “but also President Uribe” himself.

To other stories from the weekend:

· The Jamaican government has declared a state of emergency in parts of the capital of Kingston as supporters of a notorious drug trafficker fight the possible extradition of their leader to the United States. Christopher “Dudus” Coke is holed up in a West Kingston neighborhood, and his supporters have already torched a police station and traded gunfire with security forces in the area, says the AP. The New York Times says the showdown comes after PM Bruce Golding approved the extradition of Coke to the US last week.

· An in-depth New York Times investigative report published in the paper Sunday reveals human rights atrocities committed at a prison in Les Cayes, Haiti, following the January earthquake. According to the Times, Haitian authorities shot and killed somewhere between 12 and 19 unarmed prisoners (with up to 40 others wounded) in the days following the quake – and then sought to cover the executions up. Haitian human rights leader, Myrtil Yonel, calls the event “a massacre.” The full 7-page story can be read in-full here. Also on Haiti, facing intense opposition, President René Preval may be reconsidering the idea of extending his mandate if elections are not held as scheduled. And an NPR report looks at the reopening of schools in Port-au-Prince. “One of the strongest signs of life returning to normal four months after the earthquake is that each morning, the streets are once again filled with children in school uniforms,” the report begins.

· In Cuba, there is much talk this weekend about discussions between the Cuban government and the Catholic Church over the release of several political prisoners. IPS reports that Raúl Castro met last Wednesday with the archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, and with the head of the Cuban bishop's conference, archbishop Dionisio García. The discussions focused on “matters of common interest” and the “favorable development of relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban state,” sources indicate. The meetings, which OAS Sec. General José Miguel Insulza praised a “positive sign” over the weekend, are said to have lasted some four hours, and Cardinal Ortega indicated afterwards that talks “got off to a magnificent start” and “must continue soon.” This morning the Miami Herald adds to the story, reporting that talks may have led to a deal in which Cuban authorities agree to “move sick political prisoners to hospitals and other jailed dissidents closer to home.” The paper, quoting an independent journalist on the island, calls the announcement a “stunning concession to the recent avalanche of criticisms of [the government’s] human rights record.” More talks between Cardinal Ortega and Raúl Castro are expected to occur later in the week.

· A report from the Washington Post over the weekend says US authorities are very satisfied with a recent rise in drug war-related extraditions from Mexico to the United States. However, other shortcomings obscure this particular success. “In fact,” the paper posits, “the extraditions might be responsible for a surge in brutality.” “Mexico extradited 107 alleged criminal offenders last year, far more than in any previous year, and is on pace to top that number in 2010, according to Justice Department statistics.” But, the piece continues, “extraditing high-ranking mobsters has sparked more ferocious turf battles both within the cartels and between rival organizations.” In the words of Sen. Richard Durbin, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on human rights and the law, “While extradition can be effective in the short term, it is not the long-term solution to illegal drug trafficking.”

· The Wall Street Journal also suggests that attempts to thwart the flow of drugs into the US is fueling new turf wars and rising drug violence along the border. From Ciudad Juarez, the paper has the following analysis of the emergent drug retail market in the border city:

"Traffickers, unable to get some drugs to Americans, began to sell them in Ciudad Juárez. That has left the city of 1.3 million people—once mainly a transit center for drugs—with a pattern of mounting crime similar to that of the U.S. cities where drugs are headed, namely killings at street corners between gangs vying to be the town's principal drug dealers. Even in cases when drugs begin flowing back across the border into the U.S. again, some amount remains destined for local consumers.”

· And the family of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos has asked Mexican authorities to end their investigation into the disappearance of the former PAN leader. “A photo of a shirtless, blindfolded man resembling the gray-bearded politician appeared on social networking sites late Thursday,” the AP reports. And the family now apparently prefers to negotiate the release of Fernandez de Cevallos from alleged kidnappers on its own.

· The LA Times says behind Brazil’s attempt to broker a deal in Iran last week are the ambitions of an emergent world power. “I think the basic reason for this is that Brazil wants to be recognized,” says Rubens Ricupero, a former diplomat and one-time secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. “In the case of Iran, I think it is the first concrete example in which that same desire to be a global player has manifested itself politically.” Oliver Stuenkel, a visiting professor of international affairs at the University of Sao Paulo expresses a similar sentiment. “For Lula, the Iran thing isn't important as such. He's making a broader argument that current structures of global governance are unjust, and that emerging powers should have a greater say.” In the words of former Brazilian ambassador to the US, Rubens Barbosa: ‘Lula is not ideological, he is pragmatic. He was a unionist and what he did more than anything in life was negotiate, with heads of businesses, between rich and poor, between developed nations and underdeveloped nations. He has that vision.” [More on the matter in a couple of good opinions at Real Clear World, here and here].

· Also in a show of the changing terms of Latin America’s engagement with the world, Bolivia’s Evo Morales finished up a European trip over the weekend. In Norway, he received pledges of Norwegian assistance with “environmentally-friendly” development of the Bolivian oil and gas industry. And in Finland, a deal that would send clean energy technology to Bolivia in exchange for organic agricultural goods topped the president’s agenda.

· Finally, a handful of opinions. Mary Anastasia O’Grady on the “too-close-to call” Colombian elections. Andres Oppenheimer on Mexico’s own immigration problems – namely its poor treatment of migrants from Central America. “Arizona has just passed a bad law that opens the doors to racial discrimination, whereas Mexico has passed a good law that fights racial discrimination, but the country doesn't do much to stop police abuses against undocumented immigrants,” he argues. An editorial in the Miami Herald salutes the leadership of the Church in Cuba for beginning human rights talks with the Cuban government. Independent Cuban journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, also in the Herald, calls for more US-Cuba cultural exchanges of artists and musicians. And Sarah Stephens, director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, calls for close collaboration between the US and Cuba over the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

Guns, Arizona, US Aid, and Mexico

Guns and immigration were among the issues Felipe Calderón highlighted in his speech to a joint session of the US Congress Thursday. On the former, the Mexican president, facing rising criticism at home for his aggressive prosecution of the drug war, called on the US to “regulate” the sales of assault weapons “right away,” saying the weapons were too frequently “ending up in the hands of criminals.” According to the Washington Post, Mr. Calderón said his country had seized some 5,000 guns over a three-year period -- 80 percent of which were traced back to a sale in the US.

The paper also says the Mexican president thanked lawmakers for providing hundreds of millions of dollars to “bolster his country's fight against drug gangs” – a fight he said he has no plans of dialing down. “We have not hesitated to use all the power of the state, including the federal police and the armed forces,” Calderón said Thursday. “We are hitting them, and we are hitting them hard.”

This as an AP report this morning indicates that the United States has only “spent a fraction of the $1.1 billion it promised Mexico between 2008 and 2010 to make ‘an immediate and important impact’ on surging drug cartel violence.” State Dept. spreadsheets recently obtained by the wire service indicate that only now is money really beginning to flow to Mexico. The AP: “After bureaucratic tie-ups limited spending to $26 million in two years, cash began to flow this year, with $235 million projected by year end, and at least $331 million expected in 2011.” [U.S. leaders frequently talk about how they have sent $1 billion in aid to Mexico over the last three years. Calderón himself said he’d received “about $400 million” already. But, the AP says, the real number is actually just $161 million thus far.]

And on the immigration issue, the biggest news came in the reaction of various Republican members of Congress who believed Calderón had “crossed the line” in assailing Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation. “I've never heard of another country's president coming here and criticizing the United States like that,” Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-TX) said after the speech. Makes you wonder if he’s ever heard an American president talk in or about Latin America before.

To other stories today:

· The Washington Post reports on Sen. Claire McCaskill’s worries about a lack of oversight on some $1 billion the US sends to various Latin American governments to combat illegal drug production and trafficking. McCaskill, chair of the subcommittee on contracting oversight, attacked both the State Dept. and Pentagon on the issue during a hearing Thursday [full statement available via Just the Facts], saying the responsible agencies “had been slow to provide her office with the most basic information, including how much is being spent, what kind of work is being performed and whether periodic evaluations and audits are being done.” Among the companies who have been given contracts by the US government are Northrop Grumman, ITT Systems, Lockheed Martin and DynCorp.

· Sticking with drugs and violence, Global Post has a new piece looking at the reversal of crime trends in Medellin, Colombia. “The city has returned to its old ways, throwing into stark relief just how difficult it is to reclaim a city from drug traffickers,” journalist Nadja Drost writes. The piece goes on: “Behind the new and relative calm was a strong, criminal hand: Diego Fernando Murillo, a drug kingpin who monopolized Medellin’s drug trade — even from prison. Many attribute the drop in killings in the mid-2000s not so much to the city efforts, but to the overlord’s regime, dubbed ‘Donbernabilidad.’”

· Also, news on the murder of peasant land rights activist, Rogelio Martinez, who was killed in rural Northern Colombia this week by “a group of hooded men dressed in black.” In a new statement condemning the murder, Amnesty International says “those campaigning for truth, justice and reparation and for the return of lands stolen by paramilitary groups in the context of Colombia’s long-running armed conflict continue to pay a heavy price for their human rights work.”

· The US Justice Dept. says former Guatemalan special-forces agent Gilberto Jordan has been indicted by a federal grand jury for lying on his naturalization application about his participation in a 1982 massacre at the Guatemalan village of Dos Erres. If convicted, DOJ says Jordan faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and revocation of his U.S. citizenship.

· Meanwhile, in Guatemala, a Mexican national was sentenced to 60 years in prison this week for his involvement in the massacre of 19 drug traffickers in November 2008. Victor Hugo Morales, considered among the Zetas’ leadership, was charged with criminal conspiracy and membership in an illegal armed group, EFE reports.

· From Peru, a piece in Foreign Policy looks at on-going indigenous struggles against extractive industries in the Amazonas region – and the state violence with which such struggles continue to be met, particularly after Bagua. “The problem,” says Ivan Lanegra, an officer in Peru’s ombudsman's office, “is there's no overall development plan [in Peru]. No one is managing the big picture. The state needs to play a bigger role in regulating these projects and guiding the profits into proper institutions. Until that happens, local communities will continue to feel there's no one looking out for them.”

· The images of indigenous demonstrations are not ones portenos are particularly familiar with but BBC Mundo writes that on Thursday groups entered the capital city of Buenos Aires and its principal plaza, the Plaza de Mayo. Their demands: the return of their ancestral lands, much of which have fallen into the hands of large soy farmers and education reform that is “pluricultural.” The protests came as the country prepares for its much-anticipated Bicentennial celebrations.

· In the Economist, a very good report this morning on the booming Brazilian economy which some have said faces the risk of “overheating.” Also more at BBC on Lula’s frustrations with the US over Iran. The matter is also the subject of a good Q & A with Peter Hakim, Paulo Sotero and Matias Spektor over at the Inter-American Dialogue’s site.

· The Miami Herald reports that the U.S. agency which enforces Cuba sanctions approved 42 new travel service providers this year – up from zero in 2009. According to the paper, the increases come, in large part, because of (slightly) new US-Cuba travel policies enacted by the Obama administration last year.

· In These Times says neoliberalism is “alive and well” after Latin America put the ink on new trade deals with the European Union this week. Speaking about the new Central America-EU free trade deal in particular, ITT says “human rights advocates and workers across both continents are opposing the agreement at a time when Europe is struggling to rebound from the financial crisis, suddenly intensified by the recent turmoil in Greece.”

· In Uruguay [recently named the “most optimistic country in the region”] more than 10,000 took the streets Thursday for what is arguably one of the most moving annual demonstrations anywhere in the region. The 15^th annual “March of Silence” brought human rights activists, labor activists, and politicians (including President José Mujica) together to remember the victims of the country’s military dictatorship while again demanding “truth and justice” for those who remain disappeared. The march was the first since voters failed to approval the annulment of an amnesty law that continues to shelter some military officials from prosecution for human rights violations committed during the dictatorship. Also, I recommend a short video which the Uruguayan Mothers and Families of the Detained/Disappeared aired on Uruguayan television yesterday.

· In Colombia, new polls show Antanas Mockus increasing his lead over Juan Manuel Santos ahead of May 30^th voting. In the first-round, Mockus beats Santos 33% to 29%. But in a second-round Mockus’s now holds an astounding 14 percentage point lead over Santos!

· Lastly, opinions. Roger Pardo-Maurer (former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs) in Politico says Mexico’s challenges go well-beyond the drug war. Among the issues he highlights: oil, water, competitiveness, youth, and aging. The Washington Post, in an editorial, says the Obama administration and Congress should listen to Felipe Calderón’s calls for a revival of the assault weapons ban. Also in the Post, neocon Charles Krauthammer talks Latin America after the Brazil-Turkey-Iran nuclear deal. Pictures of Turkish and Brazilian presidents standing next to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Krauthammer argues, show “not just an America in decline” but “America in retreat -- accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum.” Andres Oppenheimer and Israeli columnist Uri Dromi also offer their thoughts on Brazil and Iran in the Miami Herald.