Questions Surround UN Base in Haiti, "Catastrophe" Looms

A piece this week at Global Post asks whether Haiti’s “gruesome brush with cholera” represents a “failure” of international aid efforts or a model of containment [As of yesterday, Jacob Kushner writes, the disease had not spread through Haiti’s tent camps where 1.3 million people still live – and where international efforts have been focused]. But such questions may be quickly overshadowed by more serious and immediate concerns.

The AP’s Jonathan Katz reports from Haiti that the UN is now carrying out an investigation of a UN peacekeeping base controlled by Nepalese soldiers near the epicenter of the outbreak. The official investigation follows “persistent accusations” by residents of the area that “excrement from the newly arrived unit caused the cholera epidemic that has sickened more than 4,000 people in the earthquake-ravaged nation.” The UN peacekeeping mission (Minustah) maintained its “categorically denial” that it is to blame for the infection yesterday. But the AP reveals distressing new evidence from the Nepalese base that sits above a tributary to the Artibonite River (the source of most infections) which, at the very least, suggests the UN has been less than transparent about sanitation conditions there.

In a statement Tuesday, the Minustah said the Nepalese base uses “seven sealed septic tanks built to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards, emptied every week by a private company to a landfill site a safe 820 feet (250 meters) from the river.” But Jonathan Katz says “those are not the conditions the AP found on Wednesday.” The AP:

“A buried septic tank inside the fence was overflowing and the stench of excrement wafted in the air. Broken pipes jutting out from the back spewed liquid. One, positioned directly behind latrines, poured out a reeking black flow from frayed plastic pipe which dribbled down to the river where people were bathing.”

Samples from the broken sanitary pipes were collected by uniformed military personnel on Wednesday, with a handful of journalists present. Then, “about a half hour later, as AP and Al Jazeera journalists stood by, the Nepalese troops began hacking around the septic tank with pickaxes and covered the exposed pipe jutting from behind the fence, but did not plug it.” Al-Jazeera who has video from the Nepalese base, adds that cholera is endemic to Nepal, with the same strain found by researchers in Haiti present in the Himalayan country. Even so, Eric Mintz, an epidemiologist with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the AP that the strain is too common to be considered a “smoking gun.” [The CDC is not taking part in the investigation in Haiti, however].

The Wall Street Journal this morning makes mention of the AP’s reporting on the Nepalese base, as well as the UN investigation which has begun there, while pointing to more general concerns about inadequate sanitation infrastructure and an increasingly limited clean water supplies in areas which could soon be affected by the outbreak. “Only 29% and 12% of urban and rural Haitians, respectively, had ready access to sanitation in 2008,” the paper reports. And in many rural areas, “the situation is worse than it was two years ago.”

Now this morning, reports from Al-Jazeera that the first wave of cholera are being reported in the capital of Port-au-Prince. “Just about 24 hours ago,” Al-Jazeera’s Seb Walker reports, “the UN announced that there were 174 suspected cases in [Cite Soleil]” – one of the capital’s most famous slums. “If cholera spreads in the city, it's going to be extremely difficult to deal with and many people could die, this is what we are hearing from health officials all the time,” Walker reports.

AQ and Independent Television News (with a video report) have a bit more on what the growing cholera threat could mean for the already questionable Nov. 28 elections. And in today’s Miami Herald, Laura Wagner, a researcher working in Haiti, writes the following: “If cholera were to spread in Port-au-Prince, in the camps, it would be an unthinkable catastrophe, an inconceivable nightmare.” There are growing signs that this nightmare could be beginning.

To other stories:

· In Mexico, reports on the wave of mass murders that have struck the country over the last week. The New York Times reports that “in the span of a week, a devastating wave of attacks has killed dozens of civilians, rattled a public not easily shocked anymore and forced the government to concede that innocents are being swept up in the violence.” The latest attacks include the killing of four men in Juarez after gunmen opened fire on buses carrying workers home from the late shift at an automobile upholstery factory in the city. Authorities say the attack on maquiladora workers is one which “has no precedent” in the country’s notorious “murder city.” [More from the LA Times].

· Also yesterday, another potential first: a mass killing in a working class neighborhood in the Mexican capital of Mexico City. The Times warns that investigators have “not determined a motive or whether it was linked to organized crime.” But the paper says “the city has long feared that mass violence would reach here.” As the AP notes, Mexico’s El Universal covered the events writing that “massacres have arrived in DF.” Those attacks follow three others throughout the country this week, making it five significant civilian massacres in seven days. Also yesterday, the AP reports that nine police officers were killed in the state of Jalisco after an “hours long gun battle with gunmen.” [That report also says that yesterday the United States “delivered three mobile X-ray inspection vehicles to Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative anti-drug aid plan”].

· In Nicaragua, US Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela held a “frank and respectful” conversation with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in Managua. El Nuevo Diario says the two avoided sensitive “internal political questions,” instead focusing on matters of “common interest,” namely economic relations and the fight against organized crime. Like his Costa Rican counterpart, Laura Chinchilla, President Ortega once again said Thursday that he supports new regional mechanisms for fighting the proliferation of narcos in Central America. [Valenzuela says they also broached the subject of Honduras].

· On the issue of drug trafficking in Central America, Kevin Casas-Zamora of Brookings argues the US is not doing enough to support Central America’s fight against traffickers. Specifically, he says the US is making a mistake by underfunding the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). A different take on the same issue from NACLA, which sees the expansion of a US-backed militarized drug war entering the Central American isthmus. Kevin Alvarez, for NACLA:

“U.S. anti-drug policies have not been able to impede production of drugs in Colombia, or other parts of South America. They have not been able to stop drugs smuggled through Mexico, and they have not been able to stop the historic high number of illicit drugs that enter the United States today. Nonetheless, U.S. policymakers are attempting to replicate the same failed strategy, as they turn to Central America, sandwiched between Colombia and Mexico, in an attempt to cut off the traffickers before they ever reach Mexico and the U.S. border.”

· In Peru a report on Lima mayor-elect Susana Villarán from IPS. Also two interesting interviews with Villarán – one in Peru’s La Republica and another with the BBC.

· Also, a recent interview with Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, by Mexico’s La Jornada (h/t IKN). And news from BBC Mundo that the director of the police hospital where Correa was allegedly held during this month’s uprising-turned-coup attempt has been placed under “90 day preventive detention.”

· Argentine foreign minister Hector Timerman says he anticipates current president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will pursue a second term in office after the death of her husband Wednesday. “We have said all along that (the next Argentine president) could be a he or a she ‘penguin’, now there’s no question that it’s going to be her”, Timerman told CNN. Meanwhile various Latin American leaders, of all ideological stripes, arrived in Buenos Aires to honor the country’s first gentleman. According to Telesur, the leaders of Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile and Uruguay all noted that to deepen Latin American integration would be to honor the legacy of the departed ex-president and UNASUR secretary general. That news as Venezuela proposed that inhabitants of the region “should be able to move freely and live anywhere within the region” at the 10^th South American Migration Conference held in Cochabamba, Bolivia earlier this week.

· And finally Brazilians head to the polls Sunday. Latest poll numbers from Datafolha show Dilma Rouseff maintaining a 10 point lead over Jose Serra (50 to 40%). Another poll from Ibope gives Dilma a slightly larger 13 point edge. The Wall Street Journal says the biggest winners of this year’s campaign have been Brazil’s evangelicals while the Guardian criticizes the weak environmental pledges that both candidates have made, particularly on deforestation of the Amazon and carbon emissions.

Kirchnerismo: Legacies and Future

Former Argentine President and current UNASUR secretary general Nestor Kirchner died unexpectedly Wednesday morning, in the Southern Argentine city of El Calafate. The cause of death, doctors say: a sudden heart-attack. Kirchner was 60 years old.

The New York Times says the death of Mr. Kirchner throws both the remaining year of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s term, as well as next year’s elections, into a “sudden state of flux.” Political insiders have long maintained the popular ex-president “exercised substantial behind the scenes influence” within his wife’s government. Many analysts had expected the first gentleman to run again next year – and be the frontrunner. Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in the Washington Post this morning, says:

“Nestor Kirchner was such an obvious choice in the next presidential election that this just throws the deck of cards into the air. Obviously, there's now going to be tremendous jockeying, but no one commands the national following that he had.”

The Economist hardly treats Mr. Kirchner’s passing and his presidency with much sympathy, arguing Kirchner “exemplified the country’s caudillo-centric political culture.” It continues: “In most countries, the death of a presidential spouse would be seen as a national tragedy. In Argentina, it is a political upheaval.” The magazine adds that Mr. Kirchner’s death could embolden a presidential runs by lesser known Peronistas who “might have kept their ambitions in check for fear of Mr. Kirchner’s wrath.” Among those mentioned, Daniel Scioli, Kirchner’s former VP and currently the governor of the province of Buenos Aires.

It was the world of international high finance, often associated with the Economist, where Kirchner undoubtedly left his deepest mark – and it is there where we find some of the most uncouth statements on the former president’s death. Here’s Roberto Sanchez-Dahl, who oversees $1.1 billion in emerging market debt for Pittsburgh-based Federated Investment Management, from Reuters:

“Sincerely, for Argentina and from a market perspective there is nothing better than knowing that Kirchner will be out of the presidential race of next year. For years his confrontational, resentful style towards investors, companies and bond holdouts deprived Argentina of much-needed capital.”

The Financial Times, meanwhile, says the price of Argentine bonds rose sharply yesterday, simply on hearing news of Kirchner’s passing. Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research puts such reactions into historical perspective by comparing Kirchner’s defiance of international financiers and his successful jump starting of an economy in crisis to the presidency of FDR. Weisbrot:

“Argentina's recession from 1998-2002 was, indeed, comparable to the Depression in terms of unemployment, which peaked at more than 21%, and lost output (about 20% of GDP). The majority of Argentines, who had, until then, enjoyed living standards among the highest in Latin America, were pushed below the poverty line. In December of 2002 and January 2003, the country underwent a massive devaluation, a world-historical record sovereign default on $95bn of debt, and a collapse of the financial system.”

Under Kirchner’s watch, growth was restored, averaging 8 percent annually. In addition, more than 11 million, in the country of 40 million, were pulled out of poverty during the Kirchner presidency.

[If interested, I recommend re-reading the transcript from a fascinating debate between Nestor Kirchner and Paul Krugman in New York in 2004, dealing with Argentina’s economic crisis – also perhaps the first reference to a OPEC of soybean producers, an idea which resurfaced again last week].

Kirchner’s other legacies, as various reports suggest: his decision to fight impunity by both overhauling a corrupt judiciary and restarting the prosecution of military officials involved in the country’s dirty wars, as well as a commitment to bolstering Latin American regional integration. The latter was a project in which Kirchner was most recently active, becoming UNASUR’s first permanent secretary general earlier this year. More from Página 12, Clarín, and Beatriz Sarlo, who has a moving opinion on Kirchner and human rights, in La Nación.

To other stories:

· In Mexico, another massacre at a drug rehabilitation center, this time in the state of Nayarit, 400 miles west of Mexico City. Reports say gunmen killed 15 men who were outside the treatment center, washing cars. As the New York Times notes, the incident is the third such mass killing in the last week. More from El Universal which says the murders were carried out by unknown individuals riding in three unmarked trucks. The CS Monitor looks at why recovering addicts have become a target of violence.

· Meanwhile, more reporting on President Felipe Calderon’s statements on the BBC, including the president’s claim that “there is no alternative” to the fight he is currently waging against organized crime. Calderon also takes a shot at his predecessor Vicente Fox who has publicly broken with the current president over his handling of the drug wars. Calderon says Fox “didn't act in time” to stem the rise of the cartels. Calderon:

“I think that if Mexico had started to fight against this problem 10 years ago, we would be talking about something completely different now.”

· On the cholera crisis in Haiti, the Wall Street Journal this morning has a much more pessimistic take on the situation than other reports from the past week. The Pan American Health Organization said 4,147 people have been infected and 292 have died from the outbreak thus far, up from more than 3,100 infected and more than 250 dead on Monday. And at a news conference Wednesday, PAHO deputy director Jon Andrus offered the following assessment:

“With a disease like this, you see a rapid upswing in the number of cases over a short period of time, and that's what we're seeing…[the epidemic] doesn't appear to be stabilizing.”

The New York Times, meanwhile, reports on the closing of a 400-bed Doctors without Borders cholera treatment center in St. Marc, Haiti – this following a resident protest against the center being constructed so close to the non-infected population. The Times also reports on protests against the UN itself in Mirabelais where residents maintain the contamination of a local river by human waste from a United Nations force from Nepal could have triggered the cholera outbreak. Those allegations provoked the United Nations mission to “issue a communiqué explaining that their septic system met international environmental standards and that none of their waste was dumped in the river.” But no sign of an actual investigation yet.

· On the impact which the cholera outbreak is having on scheduled elections in late November, the Miami Herald has a report, saying some candidates are now calling for the vote to be delayed. “The vote should happen when the World Health Organization says [cholera] is contained, or when the [Provisional Electoral Council] says this election will not use rallies,” candidate Leslie Voltaire tells the paper. No indication from the government that it plans to move the date. And on Wednesday, the Herald says that message was reiterated in Washington where “the diplomat leading a joint Organization of American States/Caribbean Community observation mission reported that ‘the electoral process is progressing steadily toward 28 November.’” The International Crisis Group also has a report on the November vote calling it “perhaps the most important elections in [Haitian] history.” But, it too notes, the legitimacy of those elections is in question. ICG:

“[T]he historical obstacles – such as low turnout, suspicion of fraud and campaign violence – not only persist but have been greatly exacerbated by the 12 January earthquake that killed a quarter million people and left the capital in ruins and its government in disarray, as well as by the current outbreak of cholera.”

· The New York Times on the New York Philharmonic’s petition to the US Treasury Dept. that it be allowed to perform in Havana.

· The Wilson Center posts a speech given by Nicaraguan journalist Carlos F. Chamorro at an event sponsored by the Center’s Latin America Program and the Open Society Institute in Washington earlier in the week.

· And Nick Kristof at the New York Times is the latest columnist to come out with a pro-Prop. 19 opinion. Kristof: “Our nearly century-long experiment in banning marijuana has failed as abysmally as Prohibition did, and California may now be pioneering a saner approach. Sure, there are risks if California legalizes pot. But our present drug policy has three catastrophic consequences.” The full-case for legal weed at the Times.

Latin America's Common Front on Drugs/Organized Crime?

A group of Latin American leaders say they are united in their fight against drug trafficking in the region – and are asking the “drug consuming nations” (the US?) to support their common front. Representatives from 10 Latin American countries were hosted by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for a one-day summit in Cartagena Tuesday. The AP reports that talks on drug policy and organized crime turned quickly to Prop. 19, with President Santos, speaking on radio after the summit, yet again asking how he it would be possible for him to throw a Colombian marijuana farmer in jail when “in the richest state of the United States it's legal to produce, traffic and consume the same product.”

Meanwhile, the final statement produced by summit participants asked that drug-consuming nations form “consistent and congruent” anti-drug policies. Quoting from the AP’s reporting, here’s an excerpt of the declaration:

“[Drug consuming nations] cannot support criminalizing these activities in this or that country, while at the same time (supporting) the open or veiled legalization of the production and consumption of drugs in their own territories.”

In one of her first major statements against Prop. 19, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla called California’s marijuana legalization initiative a “contradictory message” that “would put at risk, sincerely, the consistency of the anti-drug fight.” And Mexican President Felipe Calderon, speaking with the BBC’s HARDtalk yesterday, continued to suggest an inner contradiction between California’s legalization proposal, on the one hand, and a unified regional fight against “transnational organized crime,” on the other. Calderon on organized crime:

“Our biggest wish for our region is development, but our biggest obstacle is this transnational organized crime, which knows no borders, poisons our youth and damages our people through extortion, kidnapping and murderous violence. It's not possible to really face it effectively independently.”

[For other perspectives on policy options that move toward “shared responsibility,” the Wilson Center has more. Just the Facts also summarizes the Wilson Center’s recent discussions on the same topic.]

But others continue to disagree that such a contradiction exists – or perhaps, better stated, seem to downplaying the regional impact that the California’s Prop. 19 would have and instead are embracing the need for “global” or “multilateral” initiatives that move toward more sensible drug policy. Earlier in the week, the president of Colombia’s Congress, Armando Benedetti, became the latest to suggest that much. And Colombia Reports says, despite Juan Manuel Santos more public opposition to Proposition 19, the Colombian president’s position on drug policy could be read the same way.

No matter one’s position on Prop. 19, it certainly seems that the California initiative has had the very positive effect of stimulating the beginning of much needed regional discussion on a new approach to the drug question – a discussion which will be forced to take topics like legalization and harm reduction seriously in the coming months. [See also El Tiempo’s reporting].

As for Prop. 19 itself, George Soros donated $1 million to the cause this week – a donation which the Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann says reflects Soros’s belief that the drug war must be “rolled back.” Katrina vanden Heuvel, in her Washington Post column, also lays out the domestic case for marijuana legalization. But the latest survey by the Public Policy Institute of California finds the initiative struggling a bit. According to the poll, Prop. 19’s passage is currently backed by just 44 percent of likely California voters. Almost half say they would vote against it.

To other stories:

· More on the drug wars: A troubling manifesto was released by what appears to be a new citizen’s paramilitary group in Juarez, announcing it has plans to take the fight against drug cartels into its own hands. The group, calling itself the Citizen's Command for Juarez (CCJ) – and apparently made up of students, business owners, and other professionals – released a statement to the media yesterday “declaring war against thieves, kidnappers and extortionist; promising to kill them one by one if the government doesn't stop the violence.” The dangerous problem this presents, according to UTEP political scientist, Tony Payan: “What prevents me from accusing my neighbor of being a criminal? And then having that group target my neighbor?”

· The LA Times reports on a bizarre “narco video” released earlier this week which shows the brother of former Chihuahua attorney general Patricia Gonzalez, with guns pointed at his head, claiming that his sister took bribes and ordered killings as the state’s top prosecutor. Patricia Gonzalez has rejected the accusations, contending they were “induced at gunpoint, most likely by disgruntled current or fired police agents, to avenge her efforts at rooting out dirty cops.”

· Meanwhile, does this week’s US delegation visit to Bogotá mark the end of “Plan Colombia”? WOLA’s Adam Isacson argues yes. The whole opinion is worth reading.

· World Health Organization officials say Haiti is likely to be affected by cholera for “years to come.” Reports continue to indicate that the outbreak’s lethalness is slowing as the infected seek treatment more rapidly. But the New York Times reports the disease will continue to spread and is now expected to also enter the Dominican Republic. The Times piece begins to ask how exactly the disease arrived to Haiti as well. “An infected person could have brought the bacteria in from another country, or it could have arrived in food or even on board a ship that discharged infected wastes into a local waterway,” the paper says.

· In-country, it’s actually the UN’s Minustah forces themselves who have come under intense scrutiny as one possible culprit. A Nepalese contingent is based alongside the river where the disease was first found. Minustah released a statement yesterday denying any responsibility and saying the camp’s septic tanks met EPA standards. Nevertheless the story is likely to develop more in the coming days.

· Also Tuesday growing frustrations boiled over into the sacking of Doctors without Border medical clinic in Saint Marc, which residents claimed put the rest of the community at risk. An editorial in the New York Times provides its take on the outbreak as well this morning. CNN provides some implicit perspective, perhaps, on Haiti. In Nigeria, a much less publicized cholera outbreak has killed 1,555 this week, they report. And in an unrelated incident, the AP says journalists covering the election campaign – which, yes, appears to be continuing amidst the health crisis – were attacked between Gonaives and Cap-Haitien on their way to campaign stop by candidate Jacques Edouard Alexis, an ousted former vice president considered to be a front-runner.

· In Lima, Peru there is finally a new mayor-elect. After nearly a month, Lourdes Flores conceded Tuesday to the center-left candidate, Susana Villarán.

· At the UN General Assembly, yesterday marked the 19^th consecutive vote against the US embargo on Cuba. Those opposed: 187. Those in favor: 2 (the US and Israel). Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. Sarah Stephens from the Center for Democracy in the Americas says the vote is yet more indication that US policy toward the island must change: “This lopsided vote in the U.N. ought to be a lesson for U.S. policy makers that the sell-by date on this flawed policy is long in the past and it should be replaced with engagement without further delay.”

· EFE reports on the murder of two pro-Chavez activists on the campus of a Merida university last Friday. Merida Gov. Marco Diaz said this week the motive for the killings remains unknown, although there are signs that “the crime scene was altered.”

· And finally, at the National Security Archive’s website, Kate Doyle has an excellent piece on the trial of Guatemalan police officers accused of killing labor activist Edgar Fernando García in 1984. Doyle, who has testified as an expert witness in the case, notes the trial’s dual significance. First, she says, the indictments of four officers were “the first to be based on evidence found by investigators among records inside the Historical Archive of the National Police.” And second, “if the court rules against the defendants, and it is upheld by the Constitutional Court, it will be the third conviction in Guatemala for forced disappearance.”

Death Comes for Tijuana

A brazen attack on a private drug treatment center in Tijuana took the lives of at least 13 men late Sunday night. The incident was the deadliest in the city since 2008, and one which opens new questions about citizen security in the border city hailed by President Felipe Calderón and others as a “model” in the fight against organized crime.

According to the LA Times, the massacre was carried out by two to four men who lined up treatment center patients against a wall before opening fire with assault rifles. Shortly thereafter, the paper says, someone broke into the police frequency in the city, “playing narco-ballad music and warning that the attack was ‘a taste’ of Juarez-style carnage.” As the Blog del Narco writes – and the Times now confirms – the anonymous radio voice added that “one person would die for every ton of marijuana seized,” a reference to last week’s seizure of some 134 tons of weed, believed to have belonged to Joaquin “el Chapo” Gúzman’s Sinaloa cartel.

The New York Times, meanwhile, returns to President Calderon’s speech at a Tijuana security conference earlier this month in which he said the city provided a “clear example” that Mexico’s security challenge “has a solution.” It’s true that the annual number of murders in 2009 from a high of more than 800 two years ago, the paper says. But, “not counting the latest violence, there have been 639 killings this year, on a pace to match or surpass the 695 of last year.” And once again, William Finnegan’s reporting for the New Yorker raises serious questions about the methods and long-term costs associated with the city’s current police “purification” process, carried out under the iron-fist of Colonel Julian Leyzaola.

Nik Steinberg of Human Rights Watch echoes those concerns in a letter to the New York Times today. “The Mexican military and police, whom [Op-ed contributor Federico] Campbell praises for making Tijuana safer,” Steinberg writes, “have committed widespread human rights abuses, including more than 100 credible accusations of torture documented by Human Rights Watch, undermining the very security they were sent to restore.” Meanwhile, David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, tells the Wall Street Journal that, even if homicide numbers have fallen, it remains unclear whether or not official authorities are actually in control of Tijuana. Shirk: “Who is in charge of Tijuana, the authorities or the thugs? I don't think there's any clear evidence that the authorities are in charge.”

Continuing with Mexico:

· Former President Vicente Fox made another plea for direction change in his country’s fight against drug cartels, calling for the military to be brought back into the barracks. Speaking at the Festival of Latin American Media in Miami on Monday, here’s Fox:

“You cannot win a battle against crime by trampling human rights, restricting freedom on the streets, or disregarding the judicial system.”

As he has outlined before, Fox said a new approach must be centered around decriminalizing the consumption, production, and distribution of drugs. Fox again added his voice to those supporting California’s Prop. 19, which is the subject of Open Society Institute founder George Soros’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal. In the US, Soros says the “roughly 750,000 arrests” made each year for possession of small amounts of marijuana “represent more than 40% of all drug arrests” – a financial burden on the country’s criminal justice system that could be erased if marijuana were legalized, taxed, and regulated. In addition, drug laws have deepened racial inequities, Soros maintains, while the principal beneficiaries remain “major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade.” Quoting Soros:

“Some claim that [cartels] would only move into other illicit enterprises [if marijuana were legalized], but they are more likely to be weakened by being deprived of the easy profits they can earn with marijuana. This was just one reason the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy—chaired by three distinguished former presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico—included marijuana decriminalization among their recommendations for reforming drug policies in the Americas.”

· Outside drug war focus, Reuters with an interesting look at Mexico’s hope of becoming a “laboratory for cutting carbon” ahead of the next round of global climate change talks, to take place in Cancun in late November.

· On Cuba, the New York Times reported yesterday on a letter which the wife of imprisoned USAID contractor Alan Gross sent to President Raúl Castro, pleading for her husband’s release, in early August. The release of the letter to the press now is meant to coincide with the annual United Nations vote condemning the US embargo on Cuba as well as debate about the European Union’s common policy toward the island. On the latter, Foreign Policy has a bit more, reporting that EU High Representative Catherine Ashton is planning to contact the Cuban government for talks aimed at normalizing ties with Cuba, following the recent release of dozens of political prisoners. The Miami Herald, unsurprisingly, rejects any changes to the EU’s common policy, which ties improvements in EU-Cuba relations to “progress on human rights.” Meanwhile, on the island, the AP and Al-Jazeera both have good reports on Cuba’s new economic reforms, which went into effect Monday. Among other things, the reforms, which did not emerge until this week, include the creation of four classes of taxes for the emergent private sector while also outlining the 178 private activities for which licenses can be granted.

· The New York Times continues its reporting on the cholera outbreak in Haiti. With optimism, the paper says “treatment is rescuing more than 90 percent of those who get to a clinic.” Just six deaths were reported Monday. And this interesting bit about Latin America’s contribution to medical efforts:

“Medical professionals and supplies are arriving from around the world to support the Haitian government, still reeling from the January earthquake. About 20 rocky miles north of St.- Marc [the outbreak’s epicenter], a Cuban medical brigade, long stationed at the community hospital in L’Estère, has been expanded to 28 doctors and nurses, and Bolivian troops are building a 100-bed cholera clinic next door.”

The CS Monitor, meanwhile, has a look at the political implications of the outbreak – and increasing doubts that the Nov. 28 vote could in any way be considered legitimate. CS Monitor: “Haitian President René Préval on Saturday voiced concern about contagion at polling stations, raising the possibility that the Nov. 28 election would be delayed. Even if the vote happens as scheduled, observers say some might stay home out of fear.”

· State Dept. number two, James Steinberg, met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in Bogotá Monday. As Colombia Reports writes, the first topic touched upon: Prop. 19 – an initiative Steinberg said the federal government in no way supports. “As we continue with this new dialogue, we will continue with the fight against drugs,” Steinberg reassured Santos. More from El Tiempo. Meetings continue today before Santos’s scheduled reunion with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday. At that meeting it is expected that the two neighbors will restore full ties. For his part, Mr/ Chavez seems to already be thinking about the meeting, recently applauding President Santos for holding back, for now, on pushing the US bases accord through the Colombian Congress.

· In Brazil, Dilma Rouseff and Jose Serra faced off in their final televised debate Monday, but, Reuters says, Serra “failed to land any decisive blows.” Dilmas currently has 49 percent to 38 percent lead over Serra, according to the most recent Vox Populi poll published Monday. More from the Wall Street Journal which also seems to have thrown in the towel on the Brazilian challenger.

· Another interesting note about Brazil’s campaign to get African nations to drop North America’s digital standard, and instead select the South American standard. The push comes as African broadcasters prepare to move from analog to digital TV.

· Also on Latin American international relations, Bolivian President Evo Morales is in Iran this week to sign a series of new bilateral agreements, including a $278 million Iran-to-Bolivia loan for mineral and textiles industry development.

· Roque Planas at the Latin America News Dispatch has more on Peruvian presidential contender Ollanta Humala’s talk in New York last week.

· In Uruguay, the AP says an amnesty law which continues to shelter some military and police officials from prosecution for dirty war human rights violations is under scrutiny once again. After voters rejected overturning the law in a 2009 plebiscite, the Uruguayan Congress is now considering annulling several of the controversial law’s articles of impunity.

· And, finally, from the Guardian, Transparency International’s 2010 corruption index. Latin America’s least corrupt, according to TI: Chile (who comes in at 21^st in the world, two places ahead of the US and three places ahead of Uruguay). The region’s most corrupt: Venezuela (at 164 of 178).

Order/Disorder, Latin America, and a Multipolar World

During one of the final stopovers of his international travels last week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both men reiterating that their “strategic alliance” – consisting principally of a series of trade, energy, and technology agreements – was part of a “new global order” that could displace Western hegemony. Upon his arrival back in Venezuela this weekend, the Venezuelan president reaffirmed that claim saying the Bolivarian Republic played a “fundamental role in the new multipolar world.” Out of the 11-day, 7-country trip (which included visits to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Iran, Syria, Libya, Portugal) came 69 new bi-lateral agreements – accords which Chavez said centered around providing “homes for the people of Venezuela and markets for [Venezuelan] products” as well as “breaking” his country’s “mono-production” oil economy.

But what of Mr. Chavez’s choice of allies in his multi-polar project? Chris Arsenault at Al-Jazeera examines that question in an interesting piece this weekend, suggesting that Chavez’s internationalism is far from winning over support at home. Journalist Nikolas Kozloff, author of Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics and the Challenges to the United States, tells Al-Jazeera that “in his efforts to create a multi-polar world, [Chavez] has created a foreign policy contradiction.” For example, his relationship with Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, Kozloff contends, has meant “coming out in favour of a repressive government that doesn’t have much in common with the leftist changes happening in Latin America.” Further, says Kozloff, “the Chavez faithful, in not raising their voice on these foreign policy issues, is ceding ground to the Venezuelan opposition.”

In addition, Al-Jazeera suggests that extra-regional alliances may be overshadowing what it sees as a more popular item on the Venezuela agenda – that of Latin American integration.

Also this weekend, other signs of changing geopolitical times, many with Latin American implications. In meetings in South Korea, the IMF agreed to significant reforms – what the Fund’s managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn says amounts to “the biggest reform ever in the governance of the institution.” The restructuring tilts the balance of power at the IMF away from advanced industrial countries, particularly Western Europe nations, and toward the developing world, most notably the BRICs. The US, however, has retained its effective veto within the Fund, still controlling slightly more than 16% of total votes (major decisions at the Fund require 85% support].

Meanwhile, as grain prices reach record highs, Bloomberg reports on the possible creation of a Southern Cone grain alliance. As the report suggests the deal between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay (also potentially Chile and Uruguay) could be a translate into significant political power for the sub-region, particularly vis a vis China. More from Boz who sees the seeds of an agricultural OPEC.

From Mercopress (by way of O Estado de Sao Paulo), a report on Brazilian defense minister Nelson Jobim’s recent rejection of the idea that US-led NATO forces be allowed to operate in the South Atlantic. “The South Atlantic has security questions which are very different from those in the North Atlantic,” Jobim told his US counterparts during recent security talks in Washington.

And in Bolivia, Evo Morales said this weekend his country is prepared to move forward with the manufacturing of lithium batteries. Although still in search of an appropriate foreign partner, the Bolivian lithium experiment is being watched closely as a novel one in green industrialization – transforming an extractive resource into a value-added good in that product’s country of origin and through North-to-South technology transfers.

To other stories:

· The New York Times and the AP have coverage of the cholera outbreak in Haiti. The Times says Port-au-Prince is now bracing for the effects of the cholera epidemic – the first in the country in a century. The disease has killed 250 already, with more than 3100 confirmed cases reported. The Times says “the government reported optimistically on Sunday that the epidemic might be stabilizing,” with fatalities having declined from 10.6 percent of known cases three days earlier to 8.2 percent now. Health officials, however, warn against being too optimistic too early.

· In Mexico, 14 were killed in a weekend massacre at a young boy’s birthday party in Juarez. Children were among those killed, with the New York Times reporting that the Friday night murders, like the January massacre of teenagers at another Juarez party, “seemed to cross a line.” The paper notes that this time President Felipe Calderón’s response was “markedly different from his offhand comment after the January deaths, when he said that the killings then appeared to be the work of rival gangs settling scores.” More from El Diario de Juarez.

· Meanwhile, in other Mexico-related stories: news that the US may be increasing its cooperation with, if not direct presence in, Mexico by sending in “intelligence advisers” to Juarez. Milenio breaks the story, the US embassy in Mexico has new information on its site about Merida-related cooperation and a bi-national pilot program that includes increased intelligence coordination. Narco News continues the story, examining cooperation between US Northcom, created in 2002, and the Mexican armed forces. And this weekend, the El Paso Times says the slayings of three individuals connected to the US consulate in Juarez earlier in the year prompted the new intelligence “pilot program” – although the report does not say whether or not new US agents are actually crossing the US border into Mexico.

· Also in Chihuahua, reports on new measures which have been approved in an attempt to protect journalists. According to the Knight Center, legislation passed by the Chihuahua state legislature will allow those who have been convicted of murdering on-duty police officers and journalists (as well as those convicted of kidnapping, mass murder, and extortion) to be handed life sentences.

· And from the LA Times, a profile of the man behind Mexico’s militarized fight against drug cartels: former FMLN guerrilla leader-turned-Calderon security adviser, Salvadoran Joaquin Villalobos.

· On Prop. 19, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos again stated his concerns about the measure this weekend. But in somewhat cryptic fashion, Santos suggested that should the initiative pass, there must be a global discussion about changing international drug policies. “This is something that one country cannot do by itself,” Santos says. “Countries must do it together -- above all if the referendum passes, we’ll almost be obligated to reintroduce this [discussion].” Andres Oppenheimer also comments on Prop. 19 and its potential Lat Am effect, hinting at his support for marijuana legalization. A USC/Los Angeles Times Poll released last week showed 51 percent of likely voters voting against Proposition 19. Thirty-nine percent of likely voters said they support the measure.

· Semana with more on the potential evolution of US-Colombia relations as a high level US delegation, led by Undersecretary of State James Steinberg, begins meetings in Bogotá today.

· Benjamin Dangl at Upside Down World has excellent analysis of the relationship between Ecuador’s indigenous social movements and the Correa government. Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reports that President Correa is rejecting calls from the opposition to grant amnesty to those implicated in last month’s police uprising-turned-attempted coup.

· From Honduras, Thelma Mejía, for IPS, reports on US Asst Sec. of State David Johnson’s visit to the country last week, as well as questions about whether the country could become a “narco state.” Mejía writes that “on Wednesday, a group of 30 members of the U.S. Congress wrote U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to call for the suspension of aid to Honduras, especially military and police assistance, because killings of political activists, journalists and others continue, in impunity.” But, Mejía writes, “Johnson arrived… with an offer of greater cooperation, to help dismantle criminal organisations operating in Honduras.” More on the letter to the State Dept., and DOS’s response, from Alex Main at CEPR.

· A report and an opinion on Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli. Time on the conservative leader’s authoritarian streak. And Mary Anastasia O’Grady, in her Monday Wall Street Journal column, on Martinelli’s state spending. Also, news from EFE that Martinelli will move ahead with his plans to pull Panama out of the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) in late November.

· And finally, on the next round of international climate change talks, set to begin November 29 in Cancun, Bolivia’s UN ambassador and climate change negotiator, Pablo Solon spoke at the Inter-American Dialogue last week. Audio here. Avi Lewis, for Al-Jazeera’s Fault Lines, also has a recent video report on Bolivia’s role in the new debate over climate debt.

EU Honors Cuban Dissident Farinas

The European Parliament announced Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas as the recipient of its annual human rights award – the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought – on Thursday. Farinas led a 134-day hunger strike on the island, protesting the detention of political prisoners arrested during a 2003 crackdown. While Farinas himself was not in prison when he began his hunger strike last year, the act of protest is credited with helping to trigger a prisoner release agreement, brokered by the Catholic Church. The Wall Street Journal reports that Farinas remains in Cuba where he was reached by phone on Thursday. He called the award a “very direct message to Cuba's leaders, who have done so little” in the area of human rights. He also said he would begin another hunger strike if the Cuban government doesn't fulfill its July 8 pledge to free, within four months, all 52 political prisoners jailed in 2003 (November 8 is the deadline).

Currently 39 of the 52 have been released. The remaining thirteen say they will not leave Cuba for Spain as the other 39 have agreed to do. More in a statement from Human Rights Watch, as well as an El País interview with Farinas himself.

The Miami Herald’s coverage of the news argues the Sakharov award announcement is one in a “string of setbacks for Havana” in recent days. Earlier in the week, President Barack Obama, in a somewhat vague response to a reporter, seemed to suggest he was still waiting for additional signs of reform in Cuba before making new US Cuba policy changes. Additionally, Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, “often criticized for being too friendly to Cuba,” (in the Herald’s words) was also replaced. And, says the paper, it seems unlikely that the EU, meeting later this week to assess its Common Policy toward Cuba, will “end a policy that ties assistance to Cuba’s human rights record.”

Meanwhile, on the same day Mr. Farinas was honored, the Catholic Church announced it has secured the release of five more Cuban prisoners. However, none are among the group of 52, jailed in a 2003 roundup of dissidents, the AP writes. Rather, they include four men and one woman “convicted of such crimes as hijacking and terrorism.” Like in previous release cases, all five have agreed to leave for Spain in return for their freedom.

Staying in the Caribbean:

· A suspected outbreak of cholera in rural central Haiti has already killed at least 135 people, overwhelming hospitals in the country, the AP reports. CEPR’s “Haiti Watch” has more on the potential public health disaster – and how it must “bring to the forefront” the still neglected issues of shelter and sanitation. On Tuesday, Walter Kaelin, the UN Representative on the Human Rights of the Internally Displaced addressed those issues:

“This is a humanitarian crisis that needs a development solution. In line with its primary responsibility, the Government of Haiti needs to endorse and communicate publicly a plan on how to provide durable solutions for those in the camps and to inform and consult with the displaced on its implementation.”

Also in Haiti, an independent commission financed by the Haitian government and the UN to investigate the indiscriminate killing of Haitian prisoners in a Les Cayes prison following last January’s earthquake, issued its findings this week. The inquiry, which came out a New York Times investigative piece on the matter, says at least 12 individuals were indiscriminately executed in what amounted to a “grave violation of human rights.”

· The Washington Post reports that a promise made by Barack Obama during his April 2009 visit to Mexico – the ratification of “an inter-American treaty known as CIFTA” which would curb small-arms trafficking (what Obama called the “source of so many of the weapons used in the drug war”) – has gone absolutely nowhere in the last year and a half. The Post: “While the Obama administration has taken other actions, such as sending anti-trafficking teams to the border, neither the White House nor Congress has pushed the treaty, which the gun lobby opposes.”

· Other Mexico reporting today. Just the Facts brings together the human rights community’s criticisms of this week’s Mexican government announcement on military abuse trials. Similarly, Human Rights Watch has a new statement on the matter. “So long as the military is allowed to investigate itself, Mexico will leave victims of military abuse without access to justice, and all Mexicans without an effective public security policy,” HRW’s Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco says. And Al-Jazeera with a video report from Reynosa on the infiltration of security forces by drug gangs there.

· On California’s Prop. 19, CNN Money looks at what passage of the initiative would do to help the state’s stretched law enforcement budget. For the second week in a row, Edward Schumacher-Matos in the Washington Post with a pro-Prop. 19 opinion. The LA Times, meanwhile, repeats its opposition to Prop. 19 in an editorial yesterday.

· Colombia Reports writes on the official opening of an investigation of Alvaro Uribe and his role in the country’s wiretap scandal. “Former DAS official Martha Leal has been ordered to testify in the investigation and provide any details she has about Uribe's involvement in the wiretapping scandal,” the news organization reports. El Tiempo has more, saying Leal, the former deputy director of DAS, will testify next Thursday, October 28.

· Meanwhile, El Tiempo also speaks with US ambassador to Colombia, Michael McKinley on what some are calling Washington’s “new Colombia agenda.” A high profile US delegation arrives in Bogotá this weekend, but McKinley downplays the “newness” of what will be discussed by the US officials and their Colombian counterparts. “The delegation’s visit,” McKinley says, “reflects work that is already underway, strengthening an relationship that should be 50:50.”

· Speaking at the New School in New York yesterday, Peruvian presidential contender Ollanta Humala presented his vision of a new Peru. The AP reports. This writer adds that Humala outlined an agenda which included recovering Peru’s natural resources, promoting regional integration, creating a “national market economy,” and fighting corruption. He also said his campaign has made an “educational revolution” its centerpiece, time and again returning to need for a strong state that would “translate economic growth into development” and was capable of being present in the entire national territory. According to most polls Humala is in fourth place in a crowded field which includes former president Alejandro Toledo, the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori, and former Lima mayor Luis Castaneda.

· José Miguel Insulza spoke on the crisis in Ecuador at the Inter-American Dialogue Thursday. Audio available here.

· Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is wrapping up his international travels. In Iran, Chavez and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reaffirmed their pledge toward to change the current “world order.” In Syria, new Venezuela-Syria energy agreements, including the construction of a new refinery in Syria. Meanwhile, back in Venezuela, more signs that the country is finally coming out of its economic recession. During a budget speech Thursday, Finance Minister Jorge Giordani said he expects 2% GDP growth in 2011.

· BBC Mundo says Latin America’s surprise economy of the year may be Paraguay. According to new IMF numbers, the South American country will see much higher than expected growth next year, now estimated at between 9 and 10.5%. Those numbers come on the back of high commodity prices, particularly soya and beef. But the question of how that growth can be translated into poverty reduction and reduced inequality remains open.

· And finally, on the media in Latin America, this week’s Economist writes that “with democracy having replaced dictatorship everywhere bar Cuba in Latin America, the region’s media face few of the menaces of the past, such as censorship or the army kidnapping, torturing and murdering journalists. But in several countries the media are finding that freedom from state repression does not mean they can publish what they please.” Organized crime, the magazine writes, is threat number one to journalism, with Mexico being on the front line of this struggle, along with Central America. In a second category, the magazine also highlights government restrictions on private media, citing Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina, among others. On these restrictions, the Economist writes:

“There is merit to these governments’ complaint that a few private hands control too much of the media. Yet all too often their remedies seem aimed at preserving that power—and shifting it to the state.”