This morning finally begins with the feel-good story dominating the region’s headlines this week. After 68 days below ground, the first eight of the thirty-three trapped Chilean miners made their way to the surface early Wednesday morning where they were greeted by family members, fellow miners, and Chilean president Sebastian Pinera. The area around mine, fittingly bestowed the name “Camp Hope,” has been converted into a bustling desert city over the last weeks. Some 1400 journalists had traveled to the mine in anticipation of the start of last night’s rescue. And they will likely continue camped out for at least another day in order to see the operation to its conclusion.
As for what the uplifting story of the rescue means for Chile, the New York Times offers the following commentary:
“The race to save the miners has thrust Chile into a spotlight it has often sought but rarely experienced. While lauded for its economic management and austerity, the nation has often found the world’s attention trained more on its human rights violations and natural disasters than on uplifting moments.”
The Washington Post yesterday offered a similar assessment, albeit steeped with significantly more psychoanalysis:
“Chileans have long fretted that aside from a dark dictatorship that ended in 1989, their country gets little attention. Theirs is a nation known in Latin America for a diverse economy and fruity wine. But Chileans are painfully aware that their country has not fielded world-class soccer teams or produced famous pop stars on the level of Colombia's Shakira.”
In terms of Chilean politics, the Times remarks that President Piñera’s decision to “stake his young presidency” on the rescue of the trapped miners was an "extraordinary political calculation.” It seems to have paid off. On Tuesday night, the president found himself in a rather unconventional setting for a former LAN chief executive: huddled in a tent in the cold Atacama night while leading anxious mining families in the guitar-accompanied singing of the Chilean national anthem. Both Pinera’s “popularity at home” and image abroad have been significantly bolstered, reports indicate. Meanwhile, Laurence Goldborne, the country’s previously low-profile minister of mining has quickly become one of Chile’s most admired political figures. Chilean political analyst Marta Lagos even goes so far as to call Mr. Goldborne “the new Michele Bachelet” in Chilean politics – a somewhat bizarre comparison but one which does capture the significance of yesterday’s rescue for the country.
More on the on-going rescue from the Washington Post, LA Times, and a live feed from the New York Times.
In other news:
· Mexican President Felipe Calderon traveled to Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday. The objective of the visit, says Reuters: “to inaugurate parks and hospitals as part of the government's plan to increase social spending and rebuild the depressed city.” But the president was hardly met with open arms. Here’s Rubi Guzman, a 23-year-old design student who joined dozens protesting the president’s visit:
“Calderon is coming to open a psychiatric center when he is the creator of our psychosis. How does he dare to show his face?”
Meanwhile, Blanca Martinez, the widow of journalist Armando Rodriguez, who was killed by hitmen outside his home in November 2008, echoes Gúzman’s sentiments. “It is very clear that there is no law in Juarez,” she says. “The politicians live on another planet.”
· Also yesterday, news that the lead investigator in the murder of a US citizen on Falcon Lake, a body of water which straddles the US-Mexico border, was himself found murdered – his severed head delivered to the Mexican military in a suitcase. According to the CS Monitor, this “would not be the first time that an investigator showed up dead after taking on a heated case against drug hitmen.” But, says Pedro Isnardo de la Cruz, an expert on security issues at Mexico City’s UNAM, it is yet another indication of “how deeply organized crime has infiltrated law enforcement and how far it will go to cover its tracks.” Pedro Isnardo de la Cruz:
“[Organized crime syndicates] have access to information about what type of investigation is under way, which police commanders are involved and which consultants, even private ones, are advising the government.”
· RAND Corporation has published a new study which downplays the effect that passage of California’s Prop. 19 might have on drug trafficking and violence in Mexico. An executive summary lists the following as the study’s “key findings”:
1) Mexican DTOs' gross revenues from illegally exporting marijuana to wholesalers in the United States is likely less than $2 billion; 2) The claim that 60 percent of Mexican DTO gross drug export revenues come from marijuana should not be taken seriously; 3) If legalization only affects revenues from supplying marijuana to California, DTO drug export revenue losses would be very small, perhaps 2–4 percent; 4) The only way legalizing marijuana in California would significantly influence DTO revenues and the related violence is if California-produced marijuana is smuggled to other states at prices that outcompete current Mexican supplies. The extent of such smuggling will depend on a number of factors, including the response of the U.S. federal government. 5) If marijuana is smuggled from California to other states, it could undercut sales of Mexican marijuana in much of the U.S., cutting DTOs' marijuana export revenues by more than 65 percent and probably by 85 percent or more.
Those who support marijuana legalization, however, maintain Prop. 19 is a necessary first step toward a larger goal. According to the Drug Policy Alliance’s Stephen Gutwillig, quoted in the LA Times:
“Ending marijuana prohibition, bringing the multibillion-dollar marijuana market into the light of day and under the rule of law, will deal a major blow to criminal syndicates on both sides of the border. California can't put these cartels out of business by itself, but Prop. 19 is a crucial first step.”
· The Center for New American Security hosted a recent panel discussion on organized crime in the hemisphere. Participants included the Inter-American Dialogue’s Michael Shifter and Brookings’ Vanda Felbab-Brown, among others. The discussion can be found in its entirety at the Dialogue’s site.
· In Colombia, BBC says seven members of an elite anti-kidnapping unit have been convicted in the murder of a civilian – one of perhaps thousands killed as part of the country’s dark false positives scandal. Meanwhile, AFP says former army major Alirio Antonio Urena was sentenced to 44 years for his role in the brutal and systematic assassinations of more than 245 civilians in Colombia’s Valle de Cauca state between 1986 and 1994. AFP says the verdict was the “first by the Colombian justice system in the notorious case, which was reopened in 1991 after justice officials originally had absolved Urena and his co-defendants.” And a special commission in the Colombian Congress has begun its investigation into ex-President Alvaro Uribe to determine his precise role in the DAS spy scandal. BBC Mundo reports that the investigation begins after various Uribe aides were banned from politics last week for their part in such activities.
· In Nicaragua, new poll numbers show sitting President Daniel Ortega to be the early favorite to win elections scheduled for November 2011. If the vote were held today, Ortega would win in the first round, the M&R Consultores numbers show, taking just over 43% of the national vote. His closest opponent, at just under 18%, is currently opposition deputy and radio businessman, Fabio Gadea. Perhaps even more interesting still is the fact that 77% of Nicaraguans do not have faith in their country’s opposition parties (just 16.2% believe in the opposition). The FSLN, meanwhile, has the confidence of 49% of Nicaraguans (47.6% do not have confidence in the Sandinistas). As for Ortega himself, his approval is on the rise at nearly 50%. Finally, Nicaraguans seem to have mixed feelings about the impact of Venezuelan aid.
· And finally, Fernando Carrera, with an opinion in Guatemala’s El Periodico on the recently revealed 1940s US syphilis experiments in Guatemala. He argues, as others have, that reparations should be on the table for victims and their families. But, Carrera adds, there is another means of “compensation” that should also be discussed: the construction of a Museo de la Memoria in Guatemala with the financial support of the US.
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