Haiti Aid and Trade in US Congress

On Wednesday, US Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Bob Corker (R-TN) proposed a 25% increase to President Obama’s request for Haiti recovery aid, bringing the total US pledge to $3.5 billion over the next five years. The Senate bill, says the AP, would also “create a senior Haiti policy coordinator, appointed by Obama and based in the State Department, to oversee a program of improving governance, economic growth, environmental restoration and investment in women and children.” If passed, the Kerry-Corker bill would raise the total international commitment to Haiti to almost $15 billion. However, the AP adds that the path toward approval by both the Senate and House may be a long and arduous one. “Even if the bill passes the Senate and House, its proposals then would have to be separately approved by congressional appropriations committees, which would take it up as a contentious midterm election approaches,” says the wire service.

The new Haiti aid proposal comes as the US House of Representatives approved a bill that expands trade preferences to the Haitian textile industry. Reuters has a report on that legislation this morning, writing that the House passed the bill overwhelmingly on a voice vote. It now travels to the upper house for approval. Discussing the specifics of the bill, the news agency writes that “The bill makes it more attractive for clothing manufacturers to invest in new facilities in Haiti by extending and expanding duty-free access to the U.S. clothing market under two separate programs.” The Miami Herald adds that the bill may be signed into law as early as next week by President Obama. The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), meanwhile, has a recent summary of legislation President Obama recently signed providing debt relief to Haiti.

Finally, from Haiti itself, President Rene Preval is in the news this morning after issuing a decree Tuesday saying he will stay in office up to three months past the end of his term, if presidential elections are not held as scheduled. The announcement is being met by criticism from opposition groups, some of whom say they will challenge Preval in the Supreme Court. Preval’s term is supposed to end in February 2011.

To other stories:

· Almost three decades after one of the most brutal massacres of Guatemala’s civil war, US federal agents from the Human Rights Violators Unit have arrested a South Florida resident and former Guatemalan special forces soldier (Kaibiles) who took part in the killing of over 200 women, children, and men in the village of Dos Erres in 1982. According to an affidavit, Gilberto Jordán, today a resident of Delray Beach, Florida “readily admitted that he threw a baby into the well and participated in killing people at Dos Erres, as well as bringing them to the well where they were killed.” The US attorney in charge of the case spoke about the arrest Wednesday, saying “The massacre at Dos Erres was a dark moment for the Guatemalan people, and we will not allow suspected perpetrators to escape justice by taking refuge in our cities and towns.” Two other Guatemalans who currently reside in California are also being sought in connection to the massacre, says the Miami Herald. The former soldiers may be prosecuted in U.S. federal courts on immigration issues but, the paper adds, “it's unclear if the former Guatemalan military men would be eventually tried for the alleged mass killings.” There’s more at Global Post (here and here) which has a couple of long reports this morning, adding that the case “would be a landmark” one “in a country where hundreds of wartime massacres have gone unpunished.”

· A bit of news this morning from Ass’t. Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela’s trip to Central America. The US Embassy in San Salvador says Valenzuela met with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, his wife, and the country’s foreign minister Tuesday discussing citizen security issues, social inclusion initiatives, and immigration. Meanwhile, Infolatam gives more details on the first of these topics, highlighting the Central American idea of a “regional security initiative” to combat organized crime. That topic will be on the table for discussion when the Central American Integration System (SICA) meets next week in Panama – a meeting Valenzuela has also been invited to attend.

· Infolatam also has more on a potential boycott of an EU-Latin America summit in Madrid, being planned by some Latin American leaders who are upset that Honduran President Pepe Lobo has been extended an invitation. Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia have all publicly stated they will not participate if the Lobo government is recognized by the meeting’s Spanish hosts. Also, some interesting analysis at Honduras Culture and Politics about Honduras’s struggle to be re-admitted to the OAS. That road seems to have gotten more difficult this week after OAS Sec. General José Miguel Insulza said the subject would likely not be on the agenda for the OAS’s upcoming annual meetings in Lima.

· And in the DR, former President Mel Zelaya met with Hugo Chavez yesterday. The AP highlights the fact that Zelaya, who remains a “guest” of the DR, apparently “drove his own car” to the meeting, and, thus, arrived late. Few actual details about the discussion between the two men were offered after their private talks, however.

· In Nicaragua, El Nuevo Diario writes about a new report on the Nicaraguan military and police forces released by the Instituto de Estudios Estratégicos y Políticas Públicas (IEEPP). The report highlights important improvements in the military’s “professionalization” as well as advances in the fight against organized crime by the Nicaraguan police. But it also notes that the police still have little legitimacy within Nicaraguan society. As others have noted, IEEPP also discusses the unlikelihood of something similar to the Honduran coup of 2009 happening in Nicaragua.

· From BBC Mundo, early signals from Iran that it may accept Brazil as the mediator of nuclear talks with the West. Iranian President Ahmandinejad apparently made the statement during a phone conversation he had with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

· At a Latin American Investment Summit in Mexico City this week, Mexican Security Minister Genero Garcia Luna estimated that Mexico’s fight against drug cartels would likely continue for some six to eight years.

· The National Journal interviews US drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske about the drug war, Mexico, and US drug use.

· AFP has more on indigenous demonstrations in Ecuador, being staged in opposition to a new water law about to be voted on in the country’s National Assembly.

· And a Latin American nation is again in the news for paving the way forward on gay rights. The Argentine House of Deputies approved same-sex marriage yesterday. The Senate must now consider the bill, which President Cristina Kirchner says she has no plans of vetoing, should it be approved. As the AP writes, this is “the first time a gay marriage initiative has been debated in a national legislature in Latin America.”