A Latin American Arms Race?

Thirty-three diplomats from around the Americas arrived in Lima, Peru yesterday for the beginning of the Organization of American States’ annual general assembly. The meeting’s theme is “peace, security, and cooperation in the Americas.” And top on the agenda, reports AFP, will be issues of military spending, as well the future return of Honduras to the inter-American body.

First, on the former. Peru’s foreign minister José García Belaunde remarked over the weekend that the issue of weapons purchases was made a central topic of discussion by the host country (note: the host country is always charged with setting the agenda of the OAS’s general assembly) in order to “strengthen confidence building measures and limit arms spending.” According to figures presented by the Peruvian foreign minister, regional military spending in 2008 came in at $38 billion– a 150% increase if the four year period 2005-2009 is compared to the previous five years. Figures in the recently released SIPRI report on global military expenditure are slightly different but seem to echo a similar trend – at least if we look at military spending around the region in real terms. According to the Swedish institute, Latin America (South America + Central America and the Caribbean) registered just over $57 billion in military spending in 2009 (a 7.6% increase from 2008 to 2009 in South America and a 9.7% increase in CA and the Caribbean; both in real terms). [By comparison, North America alone spent $680 billion on the military in 2009, also a 7.6% increase in real terms from 2008]. Brazil was far and away Latin America’s most active military spender, accounting for nearly half of the region’s total military expenditures ($27.124 billion in 2009). Next was Colombia, followed by Chile and Mexico.

But as Inka Kola shows, with the aid of some very interesting graphics [more good graphs at Structurally Maladjusted], when military spending is compared to national GDP some different trends appear. Under those terms, Colombia leads the region in military spending, allocating 3.7% of its total GDP to the military in 2009. It’s followed by Chile at 3.5%, Ecuador at 2.8%, Brazil at 1.5%, Venezuela at 1.4%, and Uruguay at 1.3%. Finally, when the spending is graphed in terms of percentage increase/decrease from 2008 to 2009, it’s Uruguay who leads the region in one year military spending increases – ratcheting up its spending by 24% over the last year. The three countries which have reduced military spending from 2008 to 2009: Chile, Argentina, and most significantly Venezuela. So is there regional arms race beginning in Latin America? Arturo Valenzuela, briefing reporters before Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to the region this week, said no, the issue does not worry the United States. He may be right – but it really depends on which way you look at it.

Below the headline:

· On the second major item on the OAS’s to-do list – Honduras – the AP says the region remains divided. Discussion about the Central American nation’s return to the OAS is not on the “official agenda” this week in Peru, says Infolatam. Rather, it is expected to be discussed at either a lunch or in a private meeting of foreign ministers Monday. Speaking this weekend, Secretary General Insulza said everyone in the region agrees on Honduras’s return [to the OAS]. “The only difference,” he said, “is that some believe that should occur without any further delay while others believe it’s necessary to require further conditions” – one of those being the ability of former president Mel Zelaya to return to his home country from exile. In the New York Times this weekend, Marc Lacey also has some very good reporting on how Latin America remains divided one year after the Honduras coup. The event, says Lacey, remains a regional one.

“[A] year after one of the most unusual coups in Central American history played out in Honduras, it continues to divide Latin America and pose an unrelenting challenge to the Obama administration’s goals in the region. And despite months of crisis negotiations and halting compromises, the Honduran political standoff will still haunt a meeting of the Organization of American States that opens on Sunday in Peru.”

Besides the regional implications, much remains unstable within the Central American country. Among concerns the concerns are on-going arbitrary arrests, beatings and killings of government opponents; the murder of journalists (seven this year); and most recently the controversial dismissal of four anti-coup judges from the country’s Supreme Court. The best quote comes from truth commission head Eduardo Stein who, the Times says, has been “studiously avoiding one politically charged word to describe Mr. Zelaya’s ouster — coup.”

“In our minds and in the evidence we’ve gathered, it is clear that it was a forced expulsion of a president who had been elected by popular vote,” Stein said by telephone from Tegucigalpa. “What do you call that?”

· Another interesting article at NACLA considers the drifting apart of the United States from rising Latin American powers, most notably Brazil. The two countries, it seems, have quite different visions of a future international political order. For Brazil that means a reformed United Nations in which developing countries are given a permanent voice on the Security Council. São Paulo’s Folha even reports that Lula may have hopes of succeeding Ban Ki-Moon as the U.N. Secretary General.

· Staying on the subject of a changing world, the LA Times this morning examines new Chinese language programs in Mexico. A pilot program in Aguascalientes, Mexico is introducing elementary students to Chinese language and culture, the paper says -- a sign that Mexico, which has lagged behind other countries in the region in diversifying its economy away from US dependence, may be changing course. The LAT: “State authorities launched the pilot language program in Aguascalientes, a working-class city, in hopes of jumping on the Chinese bandwagon. As China swiftly expands its reach across Latin America, Mexico is experiencing a flurry of new Chinese investments in traditional targets like nickel mines and in newer areas like car-part factories and electronics.”

· Staying in Mexico, already 39 bodies have been pulled from the Guerrero mine-turned-mass grave, discovered late last month. That number could rise over 100 many predict. According to authorities, the mine had become a dumping ground for drug gangs and “may be the largest mass grave ever found in Mexico,” according to Guerrero Attorney General Albertico Guinto. Also, more grisly news of six dead bodies discovered in a cave near Cancún – three with chests opened, hearts removed. Authorities suspect the Zetas are responsible. USA Today has a report on cartels’ new penchant for tapping Mexico’s oil pipelines to siphon off crude, some of which is then sold into the US. The system is bringing in as much as $715 million/year to cartel coffers. And the Washington Post reports that Cancún mayor, Gregorio Sanchez, arrested last week for aiding drug traffickers, vows to stay in the race for governor in Quintana Roo. Sanchez recently called the charges against him a “political lynching.”

· Real lynchings are coming under scrutiny in Bolivia where four police officers were recently subjected to the cruel practice by indigenous groups claiming their right to carry out “indigenous justice.” According to the Latin America Herald Tribune, similar debates about the place of indigenous justice have erupted in Guatemala and Ecuador.

· In Colombia, it appears no electoral accord will be reached between Antanas Mockus and the left wing Polo Democrático. Also from Colombia, the Boston Review has a long piece worth reading by Luis Fernando Medina. The article provides an historical overview of Colombia’s decades of violence, the formation of a guerrilla groups and the Colombian “para-state,” as well as prospects for future peace.

· From The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill, additional investigative work after a recent Washington Post article discussed President Obama’s expanding covert wars noting that US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) forces are deployed in 75 countries around the world, including six Latin American countries (Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico).

· Two notes on Haiti this weekend include news that the UN Security Council backed sending an additional 680 police officers to join Haitian peacekeeping forces and a Time piece looking at the challenge of rubble removal in the country.

· At the Open Society Institute’s blog, Victoria Wigodzky discusses the IACHR’s recent report on citizen security and human rights, released in mid-May in Argentina. “The publication of this report—and the debates that it has already generated throughout the region—helps dispute the myth that mano dura (iron fist) policies are a necessary and effective solution to crack down on crime,” she writes.

· Finally, we end with numbers this morning. New approval numbers in Mexico show Felipe Calderón regaining some popular support. He’s at 59% approval, up three points since February. In Bolivia, Evo Morales has lost significant support in recent last months. His approval numbers have fallen from 70% in December to just 44% in May (source: Ipsos-Apoyo poll) – at least within the country’s major urban centers of Cochabamba, El Alto, La Paz and Santa Cruz. Election poll numbers in Brazil show Dilma Rouseff and José Serra in a statistical dead heat, at 37% a piece (source: IBOPE). And my favorite numbers of the weekend are on presidential bank accounts. The AP says Uruguayan president José Mujica’s personal wealth consists of nothing more than a 23-year-old VW Beetle whose estimated value is 1,900 US dollars. [His annual salary is $11,000 of which he gives 20% back to his political party]. On the other end, a new Univ. of Chile study says that of the $21 million former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet apparently amassed, only 10% was legitimately earned.