Clinton Pushes Haiti to Accept OAS Recommendations

While signs of a political revolution in Egypt have seized the attention of US policymakers, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton found time for a short visit to Haiti Sunday where another political crisis remains unresolved. The Washington Post says Ms. Clinton was there to continue to push the Haitian government toward accepting a set of OAS recommendations that would drop the Preval government’s candidate, Jude Celestin, from a second-round runoff, now scheduled for March 20. Clinton to reporters Sunday:

“We've made it very clear we support the OAS recommendations and we would like to see those acted on.”

However, as the AP reports, Sec. of State Clinton clarified remarks made by the United States’ ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, last week, saying the US has no plans to cut aid to the country at this time, despite electoral uncertainties.

Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) is expected to release its final decision about Nov. 28’s highly questionable vote this Wednesday. Meanwhile, Jude Celestin has continued to remain quiet after his party, INITE, suggested last week they were no longer supporting their candidate’s bid for the presidency.

Clinton’s Haiti agenda included a meeting with President Rene Preval himself, and, according to the US Secretary of State, a principal topic of discussion was what would occur after Preval’s term expires on Feb. 7. The AP notes that “a law passed by an expiring Senate last May would allow [Preval] to remain in power for an extra three months, but it is not clear if his government would continue to be recognized by donor countries.” Clinton, on that issue before her meeting with Preval:

“That's one of the problems we have to talk about. There are issues of a continuing government, how that can be structured. And that's what I'm going to be discussing.”

Each of Haiti’s three remaining candidates – Celestin, Michel Martelly, and Mirlande Manigat – all met with Sec. of State Clinton separately at the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince Sunday as well. Only Madame Manigat spoke to the press afterwards, saying she did not get the sense that the US wanted the elections to be cancelled. Rather, political stability seems to be the United States primary concern, according Manigat.

While in Port-au-Prince, Clinton also visited a cholera treatment clinic run by Partners In Health. The co-founders of PIH, Dr. Paul Farmer (today the UN’s deputy special envoy to Haiti) and Ophelia Dahl, speak with the LA Times in Los Angeles this weekend, about the situation in Haiti. According to Farmer, Haiti’s number one public health challenge at the moment is “rebuilding public health systems” – what he describes as moving from “community-based care” to the construction of actual hospitals and a new infrastructure that can be overseen by the Haitian state.

To other stories:

· The New York Times, also on Haiti, examines some of the “old wounds” which have been reopened by Jean-Claude Duvalier’s unexpected return to Haiti two weeks ago. But the paper notes there has also been a “deafening silence” among those who were tortured by Duvalier’s regime. The Times: “In the two weeks since Mr. Duvalier’s surprise return from exile, only a handful of the tens of thousands of people who human rights groups say were illegally detained and tortured by his regime have come forward to press charges.” The paper explores some reasons why. And, in the Washington Post, journalist Marjorie Valbrun offers her opinion on why Baby Doc returned. Having conducted a series of interviews with Duvalier in France almost a decade ago, Valbrun paints a picture of soft-spoken, recluse who has long been determined to return a homeland he has sorely missed.

· In the Mexican state of Guerrero, gubernatorial elections Sunday may have returned the left-leaning PRD to power – that according to Reuters which declared a PRD victory late Sunday. Other news agencies – including the AP are more cautious, even while noting that Guerrero’s State Electoral Institute said the PRD's candidate Angel Aguirre had won 57 percent of the ballot with 55 percent of the votes tallied. (The PRI's candidate Manuel Anorve had taken just 42 percent). What is clear, however, is the PAN’s failure in this first vote of a long electoral season. Its candidate dropped out of the race at the last minute throwing his support behind the PRD.

· Also in Mexico, the AP says federal prosecutors have charged two federal police officers in the killing of a bodyguard to Ciudad Juarez mayor, Hector Murguia. According to the Attorney General’s office, the men are being charged with homicide, abuse of authority and improper behavior. Both officers have already been detained, although the details of the shooting remain sketchy. The AP also says 33 ex-mayors accused of corruption in the state of Veracruz have been ordered arrested. The group is among a total of 115 one-time municipal employees in the state who are believed to have embezzled some $5.5 million between 2004 and 2008.

· Mexico’s El Universal reports on the idea of creating a “unified front” of security forces between Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom mentioned the plan Friday, saying the integrated forces would work to fight narco-traffickers in the region. Colom, in an interview with El Universal:

"Organized crime is both a global and regional problem. It’s frequently said that “Los Zetas” are a Mexican organization, but it’s also true that we have captured Guatemalans, Honduras, and Salvadorans. This criminal group has been globalized, and so the solution to their serious aggression of which we are all victims has to be regional – I call it a “Mesoamerican Plan of Security and Justice,” counting on the support and shared responsibility of the United States.”

Colom mentions working from Colombia as well and says he’s also had discussions with the European Union about supporting regional anti-narco activities. Boz and Gancho with more. And Michael Shifter, in the special Latin America-focused, February issue of Current History, has a country-by-country assessment of security challenges facing Central America.

· At the Open Society Institute’s blog, Kathleen Kingsbury writes on an online town hall held by President Obama last week in which he said drugs should be treated “more as a public health problem.”

· The New York Times this weekend on a major drug bust in Spain earlier this month which suggests growing links between traffickers in Argentina and Europe. The seizure of 2000 pounds of cocaine in Barcelona came aboard a private jet flying in from Argentina, and now there appear to be some questions about the role of some Argentine military officials in the operation. The Times: “Last week, the Argentine Air Force dismissed Commodore Jorge Ayerdi, the head of the Morón air base, where the Challenger 604 plane took off on Jan. 1.” Argentina’s Defense Minister has called for a thorough investigation and currently a judge is investigating at least 18 air force officials who may have been involved.

· The Times also reports this weekend on the Luis Posada Carriles trial, focusing on the Venezuelan government’s longstanding inability to get Posada extradited to Venezuela for the bombing of a Cuban passenger jet in 1976. According to the paper, neither the State Department nor the Justice Department has ever presented Venezuela’s request for extradition to a federal judge.

· Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the AP on a mysterious explosion at a military arms depot, some 60 miles outside the capital of Caracas. At least one person was killed in the blast.

· Also, the AP has a long report this morning on the recently passed “Law for the Defense of Political Sovereignty and National Self-Determination” in Venezuela. The law, if enforced, would put restrictions on foreign monies accepted by Venezuelan NGO’s working on “political rights” issues in the country. According to the AP, the new law allows the government to “fine a group double the sum it receives from abroad, bar offenders from running for office, and impose similar penalties for inviting foreigners who publicly give ‘opinions that offend state institutions.’” Marino Alvarado, head of the rights group, PROVEA, tells the wire service his organization’s challenge is “how not to disappear.” Like many others, the AP notes PROVEA “relies almost exclusively on overseas funds, including donations from the European Union and U.S.-based NGOs but not the U.S. government.” At least one chavista politician Roy Daza tells AP that human rights groups will not be affected by the law, saying it is meant to restrict only “organizations that attack Venezuelan institutions.” As an example, Daza cited Sumate, which the AP says helped organize a failed 2004 recall vote against Chavez.

· Like the AP last week, the New York Times looks at faltering popularity for Evo Morales in Bolivia after last month’s “Gasolinazo.”

· New pre-election poll numbers in Peru show Alejandro Toledo widening his lead over Luis Castaneda and Keiko Fujimori.

· Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is in Argentina for her first foreign visit since taking office one month ago.

· An easing of US Cuba travel restrictions, announced on Jan. 14, went into effect late last week after being published in the Federal Register, says the Havana Note.

· Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos speaks with BBC’s Hardtalk. A short excerpt from the interview, posted at BBC Mundo, has Santos saying he would not prevent judicial investigations of his former boss, ex-President Alvaro Uribe.

· And John Lindsay-Poland of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, says there is evidence that the US is building new military outposts in Colombia, despite the Colombian constitutional court’s striking down of a military base deal last year. Lindsay Poland: “U.S. military agencies in September 2010 signed contracts for construction at Tolemaida, Larandia and Malaga bases in Colombia worth nearly US$5 million, according to official U.S. documents available to the Fellowship of Reconciliation.” Those contracts included two for special operations unit (SOCSOUTH) “Advanced Operations Bases” in Tolemaida, south of Bogotá. Additionally, Army Corps of Engineer documents indicate planned 2011 expansions of Southcom “Counter-Narcoterrorism” sites in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador and Belize, as well as a $10 million upgrade in Soto Cano, Honduras.” For more details and relevant links, see the FOR.

Previewing Obama in Latin America

More details this morning about President Obama’s March visit to Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador. According to Bloomberg, trade and energy will top the president’s agenda -- some analysts say in response to the growing economic presence of China in much of the region. The Inter-American Dialogue’s Michael Shifter tells the news agency “there’s a very keen awareness in Washington that China is a major trading partner now of Brazil, Chile and Peru. [And] there’s a sense the U.S. is missing that opportunity.”

But with neither Colombia nor Panama on the schedule, there remain some doubts about just how integral the region is to President Obama’s economic plans (El Espectador speculates that Obama could head to the former in 2012 for the Summit of the Americas). Although pending FTA’s with both countries were mentioned as part of the president’s “export initiative” Tuesday, both centre-left Brazil and centre-right Chile represent countries who have diversified their economic relationships and promoted Latin American economic integration.

In 2007 China leapfrogged the US as the principal market for Chilean copper (despite having become the first Latin American country to sign an FTA with the US back in 2003). Two years later Asia’s largest economy also overtook the US as Brazil’s number one trading partner. Since 2005, total Chinese exports to Latin America have risen 26 percent.

(See the latest issue of Americas Quarterly for more on US-Latin America trade issues).

In fact, Chile’s Foreign Affairs Minister Alfredo Moreno suggested to reporters Thursday that two matters which have not historically been at the center of US-Latin America talks -- regional democratic development and participation in regional multilateral organizations – will be on the table in Chile. The Chilean minister also says his country is seeking American assistance in further developing its nuclear energy capacities.

Re: Brazil, Spain’s El País contends Obama’s decision to visit new Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is a sign of a “new stage” in bilateral relations between the two countries. President Obama began his presidency with a White House visit from Dilma’s predecessor, Lula da Silva, famously calling Lula “my man.” But events quickly took over, with the two nations sparring on a number of issues – among them, the coup in Honduras, Iran, and international talks on climate change and the financial crisis.

Brazil has also been re-asserting its military independence by seeking to upgrade its fighter jet fleet – without the US help (although such plans remain on hold for now).

And in El Salvador, security, immigration, and economic development will likely be three principal items on the agenda, according to the Washington Post. As the paper notes, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes proposed a $900 million Central American anti-drug trafficking plan to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last fall, requesting significant U.S. assistance for the program. The Post says the U.S. government is expected to participate in a donors' conference in June to “help raise money for security efforts in the region.”

Both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal mention the Alliance for Progress, unsuccessfully mentioned by President Obama in his Tuesday State of the Union. The President’s March trip is intentionally meant to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of President Kennedy’s official announcement of that program in March 1961.

But when President John F. Kennedy took office and proposed a 10-year, $20 billion aid program, he suggested Latin America to be the most important area in the world. (Later, he called it the "most dangerous"). Few expect such a dramatic announcement in 2011, despite what appears to be a similar strategy of embracing moderate centre-left and centre-right governments. Indeed, in a likely unintentional reference to Kennedy’s description of Latin America during the early 1960s, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defined Latin America as simply “a very important region in the world” when discussing trip details Thursday.

To other stories:

· In another sign of changing times, the Economist this week on what it argues is the growing irrelevancy of the OAS – or at least its democratic charter. Venezuela and the 18 months of special decree powers granted to President Hugo Chavez by his outgoing National Assembly are the magazine’s central concern. While OAS Sec. General José Miguel Insulza has criticized the new powers, no other Latin American countries have condemned the move, the magazine reports (only ALBA member states have commented – offering their support for Chavez). The Economist, on Brazil’s silence:

“The case of Brazil, which aspires to regional leadership and is explicitly committed to representative democracy, is particularly incoherent. The country went to extreme lengths in seeking the restoration of Mr Zelaya, housing him in its Honduran embassy for months after he sneaked back across the border from exile. But it has a close relationship with the Venezuelan regime. The silence of Dilma Rousseff, its new president, has been deafening.”

· The OAS continues to be in the spotlight in Haiti where two days after rumors about Jude Celestin’s exit from the country’s presidential contest began – in accordance with controversial OAS recommendations – still no word from the candidate himself. The New York Times says Rene Preval, the man who got Celestin on the ballot, is now among those quietly pressuring Celestin to bow out after the US revoked the visas of several Haitian officials and has threatened to continue withholding aid should the electoral crisis continue. Celestin and Preval’s INITE party seems to have also abandoned its candidate. According to one international election official Celestin may be “trying to teach the country a lesson” – that “there is a process in place to determine which candidates have won enough votes to go to the runoff.” If anyone is going to appear to cave to the will of the United States,” the official tells the Times, “Célestin doesn’t want it to be him.” Amy Wilentz, in The Nation, with excellent analysis of the situation, concluding with this important point:

“So Haiti must continue on, trying to find some middle ground in the unfolding catastrophe, knowing all the while that without a great, commanding and honest leader—a broker for the people who could help guide Haiti’s splintered but passionate grassroots democratic movement in building lasting institutions—that middle ground is quicksand.”

· The Economist with an early preview of 2012 presidential elections in Mexico – asking whether anyone can possibly stop the PRI, and its likely candidate, Mexico state Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto, from retaking the presidency. The LA Times, meanwhile, looks at the vote that will kick of the electoral season – the election of a new governor in the state of Guerrero on Jan. 30. According to the paper, the PRI could recapture the governorship there from a somewhat faltering PRD. State elections in Baja California Sur are set for Feb. 6 and present a similar matchup.

· Also in Mexico, the AP reports on the resignation of an entire municipal police force – 39 individuals total – in the northeastern Mexico town of General Teran. The mass resignation follows the discovery Wednesday of the mutilated bodies of two colleagues who had been kidnapped by gunmen two days prior. Also from the AP, a report on how some traffickers are using catapults set up along the US-Mexico border in Sonora to bring marijuana into the US. The AP: “U.S. National Guard troops operating a remote surveillance system at the Naco Border Patrol Station say they observed several people preparing a catapult and launching packages over the fence late last week.” A second catapult was found nearby on Thursday. And the LA Times with more on some early signs that a militarized drug war may be creeping into Mexico’s capital.

· Laura Carlsen of CIP’s Americas Program writes on concerns about militarization around Latin America – and in US-Latin American relations – while focusing on how women’s movements are on leading the opposition to such militarization in places like Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, and Mexico.

· Steven Dudley, at In Sight, with analysis of the recent bust of a gun smuggling ring in Arizona and the loopholes in US government regulation of firearm sales which made the smuggling ring possible.

· The AP reports that Cesar Nakazaki, lawyer to imprisoned ex-Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori – is preparing a new legal “offensive” to get the sentence of his client overturned. The country’s Constitutional Tribunal is expected to rule in the coming days whether or not Fujimori’s habeas corpus appeal can move forward.

· The AP reports on a significant, and rather sudden, decline in Evo Morales’s popularity in Bolivia. The criticisms are mostly related to economic issues, the AP writes. In an Ipsos poll released this month, Morales' approval rating plummeted to 36 percent — a low point after five years in power.

· A Chilean judge says there should be a new investigation into the death of Salvador Allende as part of what the New York Times says will be “new investigations into 726 human rights-related crimes in which the victims or their relatives never filed suit.”

· El Tiempo on some stiff criticisms from some in Colombia for Juan Manuel Santos’s suggestion that Spanish jurist Baltasar Garzón be brought to the country to advise on human rights matters.

· Mercopress on Uruguayan President Pepe Mujica’s visit to Venezuela this week. The two governments signed a number of bilateral economic accords while Mujica reiterated his support for Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur and apparently offered his backing for former PDVSA oil chief Ali Rodriguez’s nomination as the next UNASUR secretary general. Mujica was in Peru earlier in the week where he supported President Alan Garcia’s calls for an increased regional focus on disarmament.

· Finally, ahead of Angelino Garzón’s visit to Washington next week, the Latin America Working Group’s Lisa Haugaard, at the Huffington Post, on key human rights issues which remain to be tackled by Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia. And journalist Ben Dangl, in The Guardian, on why Dilma Rousseff should make land reform part of her domestic agenda.

Cocaleros in Resistance? "Chew-ins" in Bolivia

Bolivians gathered at various sites around the country Wednesday, staging demonstrations in support of their government’s push for an amendment to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. But many of the protests were not exactly traditional.

As the AFP reports, in many parts of the country Bolivians sat peacefully, chewing coca leaves in a symbolic act of defiance to US-led opposition to the Bolivian amendment, which would remove a ban on coca-chewing from the 1961 Convention. One of those gatherings occurred in front of the US Embassy in La Paz where the BBC says hundreds came to demonstrate against an a recently lodged complaint by the US to the UN against Bolivia’s proposal. The US Embassy suggested the US government would stand by that decision in a short, seemingly contradictory statement Wednesday.

“The United States respects indigenous peoples’ culture and recognizes that acullico (coca-chewing) is a traditional custom in Bolivian culture… The Unites States government’s stance of not supporting the proposed amendment is based on the importance of maintaining the integrity of the 1961 Convention, which represents an important tool in the global fight against narcotrafficking.”

Cocalero and governing MAS party leader Leonilda Zurita contends the US position is out-of-touch with the much of the world. “The countries support us so that we can de-penalize (coca chewing); the only one opposing us is the United States,” Zurita tells AFP.

In addition to the “chew-ins,” marches were organized in La Paz, Santa Cruz and other cities around the country yesterday, drawing together what AFP describes as coca growers, peasants, Indians, miners, makers of coca-based products, activists and MAS lawmakers.

The Andean Information Network has more, including a letter being sent to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, for which, as of yesterday, signatures were still being collected. According to AIN, “rejecting Bolivia’s amendment conflicts with the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states: ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.’”

To other stories:

· In Haiti, conflicting reports about the potential exit of government-backed presidential candidate Jude Celestin. Reuters reports again that the governing party, INITE, has pulled Celestin from a possible second-round runoff, “under intense international pressure.” In a statement signed by INITE’s national party chief, Sen. Joseph Lambert, and others, the party says “Even if we are certain that Jude Celestin has the number of votes necessary to pass to the second round, INITE agrees to pull him from the race as a candidate for the presidency.” But Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) says it has not yet received official word of Celestin’s exit nor has Mr. Celestin himself said publicly he’s dropping out. In fact, speaking to the Miami Herald, Lambert suggests an internal dispute has erupted between Celestin and his party over the decision. Lambert to the Herald:

“Jude doesn't agree. We asked him to remove himself and he said, ‘I am not made that way. It is not part of my mental fabric.’”

Although absent from a series of INITE meetings this week about his possible withdrawal, Celestin is quietly demanding Haiti’s courts resolve the issue, according to The Herald. Some of those INITE meetings, says the paper, have included President Rene Preval. Meanwhile Wednesday, more pressure from Washington and the OAS. AFP reports on a “symbolic resolution” passed in the US Senate – and drafted by Florida senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) – saying “political leadership is required to ensure that a democratically elected government, which is respected by the people of Haiti and recognized by the international community, is prepared to assume office on February 7, 2011, or shortly thereafter.” Reuters says the OAS Permanent Council also issued a somewhat vague statement yesterday, maintaining that the CEP must ultimately decide whether or not to apply the inter-American body’s recommendations but that it gives “its full support for and commitment to the constitutional framework, democratic process, and peace and stability in Haiti.” A frustrated Joseph Lambert, reacting to increased international pressure: “Everyone sees the hands of the international community in these elections. They have law, but we don't have laws? We are not a country anymore?”

· Just the Facts with new and interesting numbers mapping trends in US military and police training in Latin America from 1999-2008. The post comes after the State Dept. finally released its Foreign Military Training Report for 2008 – just two years after it was due. (The report covering 2009 was due in March 2010 and has also yet to be released although DOS officials apparently say it will go public shortly). Adam Isacson on the principal regional trend in 2008, in terms of total military and police personnel trained by the US: a significant decline, which is based almost entirely on a “sharp reduction in training of personnel from Colombia” that year. When Colombia is excluded from the data set, something different emerges. Isacson: “Taking away Colombia reveals the number of trainees in the rest of the region – 9,700 in 2008 – to have been near the highest levels the report has shown.”

· An added wrinkle to issues of security cooperation and training comes in Venezuela where much-anticipated security talks were held yesterday between Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El-Aissami and Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera. While the number of military and police personnel trained by the US has dropped in Colombia of late, it’s nothing compared to Venezuela where US training of such personnel unsurprisingly fell 97.8% between 1999-2001 and 2006-2008. And yet in recent months Venezuela-Colombia security cooperation has emerged as a major headline. In a new accord signed Wednesday, the two one-time adversaries committed themselves to deepening that cooperation. AP:

“Under the agreement, the two countries agreed to share intelligence that will enable them to coordinate anti-drug raids on both sides of the border; increase control over chemicals used to produce cocaine; launch joint investigations of money laundering by drug traffickers; and create a commission to oversee anti-drug cooperation.”

· On a related note in Mexico, AFP reports the Mexican National Migration Institute is denying information in a recent Wikileaked diplomatic cable saying the FBI has been allowed into Mexico to interrogate detained, undocumented migrants.

· A series of reports in recent days about the militarization of parts of Mexico City. Last Thursday, El Universal reported on military patrols in the sprawling municipality of Nezahualcóyotl, begun to allegedly root out La Familia and Zetas cells. Yesterday, two more Universal reports on military operations in DF’s Itzacalco and marine raids of a hotel in colonia Nápoles.

· Amnesty International with a new statement, demanding that Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni Mora be released by the Venezuelan government.

· The New York Times with more on the life of Chiapas Bishop Samuel Ruiz who passed away earlier this week.

· The AP reports that Cuban dissident and former hunger striker Guillermo Farinas was detained by Cuban authorities Wednesday while trying to block the eviction of a woman from a home in the central city of Santa Clara. Cuban human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez says at least 12 individuals in total were detained.

· The LA Times reports on the arrest of former Guatemalan military official Jorge Sosa by Canadian authorities in near Calgary. US officials have accused Sosa of “concealing his foreign military service and of lying under oath when he said he had never committed any crime or offense” while applying for U.S. citizenship in March 2008. That hidden foreign military service included acting as a commander in the Guatemalan special forces unit known as the Kaibiles, which, in the LA Times words, “interrogated and then killed men, women and children while searching a Guatemalan village (Dos Erres) for guerrilla fighters who had ambushed a military convoy.”

· Also on issues of cold war terror, BBC Mundo with an interesting report on the opening of the Oral Archive of Villa Grimaldi in Chile this week. The oral history archive has gathered testimonies from survivors and families of victims held at the notorious Villa Grimaldi detention center. BBC Mundo speaks with one such survivor for its report. The archive’s director, Claudia Fernandez, says it’s the first oral archive of its kind related to the Pinochet dictatorship.

· Chile, as mentioned yesterday, will be on President Obama’s Latin American tour which appears to be set for late March. Renewable and nuclear energy is reported to be atop his preliminary Chilean agenda, says the AP. Andres Oppenheimer speculates about the Brazil portion of Mr. Obama’s trip. And there are reports the president will be in El Salvador on March 23 to talk security, energy, and economy.

· Finally, a last minute State of the Union edit or an Obama ad-lib? There seems to be some question about whether or not Barack Obama intended to describe his March trip to Latin America as helping to forge new “alliances for progress” across the Americas. In the spoken text, he dropped “for progress” (paralleling Obama’s talk of new “alliances” in his May 2008 campaign speech on US-Latin American relations). But, as Boz notes, it looks like the written text has retained the wording “alliances for progress.” Normally this would be insignificant, except when those two words make historical reference to a 10-year, $20 billion aid program, launched by JFK, at least in part, to contain revolutions in the region, and which quickly devolved into the US backing death squads and covert intelligence activities across much of Latin America.

Juxtaposition: Two Snapshots of Global Drug Policy

A group of distinguished figures – among them three former Latin American presidents who in 2009 co-authored a high commission report aimed at rethinking global drug policy – launched a new initiative to end the “war on drugs” paradigm Tuesday. “There is a growing perception that the ‘war on drugs’ approach has failed,” the new Global Commission on Drug Policies said in its first statement, which followed two days of preliminary meetings in Geneva, Switzerland this week.

AFP reports that among the participants in the new, private initiative are former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria, one-time EU foreign affairs minister Javier Solana, and two of Latin America’s most well-known literary figures, Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru and Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes. Also reported to be participating on the commission is Virgin CEO Richard Branson.

The major objective of the new commission will be one of education it seems, seeking to break down further what it calls the “fear and misinformation” that continues to restrict public discussion about alternatives to current drug policies. Those policies, with their focus on the “eradication of production and criminalization of consumption,” have neither reduced drug trafficking nor drug use, the commission says.

On its site, the Drug Policy Alliance says that, “with the launch the Global Commission on Drug Policy, leading figures from around the world are coming together to figure out how to move forward from the failed war on drugs.”

See also a new report authored by former Inter-American Dialogue president Peter Hakim entitled “Rethinking Drug Policy.” As with the new commission, a primary goal of the report, writes Hakim, is to help breakdown one of the “central roadblocks” to drug policy reform: “the silent tolerance of ineffective, even socially damaging, laws and policies because no specific alternative strategy has yet gathered public or political support.”

From the specter of a paradigm shift to the frustration of stasis.

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), an international network of NGOs and professional organizations that specializes in issues related to illicit drug production and use, has issued a new statement demanding those countries who may consider joining the US in issuing a formal objection to a proposed Bolivian amendment of the UN’s 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs rethink such a move. The Bolivian amendment, as reported last week, would remove an international ban on coca leaf chewing while, in the words of the IDPC, “maintaining the strict global control system for coca cultivation and cocaine. The IDPC:

“Protecting the indigenous and cultural right of Andean-Amazon peoples to chew coca does not undermine the international efforts to address the significant problems related to the illicit cocaine market. The amendment’s defeat would demonstrate that the international community continues to prioritise a punitive zero-tolerant approach to drug control over the rights of indigenous peoples. Objecting to the requested amendment would perpetuate an obvious violation of these liberties. Furthermore, reasonable and technically sound amendments to the drug control Conventions should be seen as a normal part of the modernisation process to make them fit for purpose in the 21st century.”

The European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD), meanwhile, says the Horizontal Drug Group, formed by EU member states to coordinate drug policies, meets today to decide whether or not it will file a complaint against the Bolivian amendment before the Jan. 31 deadline. So too does ENCOD call on the EU to abstain from filing a complaint, Moreover, the coalition says it is prepared to initiate a “legal procedure to lodge a complaint for racism,” under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, against any EU government which formally objects to the Bolivia’s proposed modifications to the 1961 Convention.

To other stories:

· From debates about drug policy to the violence of the ‘war on drugs’ in Mexico – host to US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week. In a Just the Facts podcast, WOLA’s Maureen Meyer has more on the Clinton visit and its significance for US-Mexico relations. Hillary Clinton herself took time to talk with Mexico’s Televisa while in-country Monday. She spends the first part of the interview clarifying her remarks from a few months back, which suggested cartel violence was commensurate with “an insurgency,” reminiscent of Colombia some 20 years ago. [Clinton also mentions issues of the need for judicial reform in Mexico, which the CS Monitor talks about in detail yesterday.] The second-half of the short interview focuses on the US’s responsibility for Mexico’s drug violence, namely US drug consumption and US guns. The latter issue makes headlines today as a network of gun buyers and smugglers was busted in Arizona as they prepared to ship some 700 guns across the border to Mexico. The Wall Street Journal says 17 individuals are named in a 53-count indictment unsealed Tuesday. Arizona US Attorney Denis Burke says guns being shipped to cartels are today one of his state’s “top exports.”

· Al-Jazeera with a short report on one of the latest tragedy in Ciudad Juarez: the murder of seven individuals at a park that had ironically been constructed as part of new anti-violence measure. The AP with a report on another notable murder: the killing of a municipal policeman serving as a bodyguard for Juarez mayor Hector Murguia. The major issue here is the fact that the police officer was shot and killed by federal police. There are conflicting accounts of what occurred but the shooting, which occurred outside a house where Murguia was holding a meeting, seems to have stemmed from either an altercation or misunderstanding between the two groups of security officials. And finally, the Mexican government’s security spokesman has ruled out any talk of a truce with La Familia, the Michoacan-based cartel which many analysts say is on the retreat. The government’s statements follow the unfurling of new banners in Michoacan Monday, claiming the drug gang had “dissolved completely.”

· In Haiti, a possible exit to the electoral crisis, but analysts ask, at what cost? The BBC and Reuters are reporting that government-backed presidential candidate Jude Celestin is prepared to withdraw from his country’s disputed election, amidst OAS, UN, and US pressure. “The candidate for our party INITE, Jude Celestin, will withdraw from the presidential race to facilitate a solution to the electoral crisis,” Senator Franky Exius, a member of the ruling coalition, told Reuters Wednesday. (The AP has yet to confirm saying INITE had not made a final decision on the matter as of Tuesday evening). One of the most outspoken critics of the OAS and US pressure on Haiti – and of what his organization has called an “arbitrary” and “flawed” OAS report that recommended Michel Martelly replace Jude Celestin in a second round run-off – CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot called Washington’s pressure on Haiti to change its election results a “sad day for Haitian democracy.” The Center for Economic and Policy Research, among other advocacy groups, has been calling for a complete re-run of Nov. 28 elections for weeks.

· In Nicaragua, EFE on growing political debate in Nicaragua over elections and election observers. Two weeks ago, President Daniel Ortega, in somewhat vague terms, suggested there could be restrictions on international observers and their ability to monitor a parliamentary and presidential vote scheduled for this November.

· Mentioned last week were a group of unsavory additions to Keiko Fujimori’s “Fuerza 2011” political coalition in Peru. From La Republica, more this week on one of those individuals, congressional candidate Sergio Tapia Tapia, who has apparently been representing the ultra-right Neo-Nazi group Perú de Fasta since 2001.

· In Venezuela, state media reports on the third use of special decree powers by President Hugo Chavez. The measures seem quite uncontroversial: forgiving the debt of small-time producers who were negatively affected by last December’s floods. El Universal, meanwhile, with more on Chavez’s plans for rapid construction of popular housing which, according to Chavez, will include cooperation with the Chinese (who met with the Venezuelan president yesterday at Miraflores), Russia, Brazil, and Iran.

· Also from El Universal, more on what may be accomplished during upcoming meetings about joint security and counter-narcotics issues between Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El-Aissami and Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera.

· As Juan Manuel Santos visits France, El Tiempo reports that the Colombian president has reached out to Spanish jurist Baltasar Garzón to advise the Colombian government on how best to combat impunity. According to Santos, the idea is to have Garzón – famous for his defense of “universal jurisdiction” and his efforts to prosecute Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet – come to Colombia to work on a team that will put together the Ley de Victimas.

· Human Rights Watch with a letter to Colombian VP Angelino Garzón ahead of his visit to Washington next week. Among his other agenda items, Garzón plans to discuss human rights issues with HRW during the visit.

· And finally, five Latin American countries enter President Obama’s State of the Union Address. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Colombia and Panama were early mentions in the domestic portion of the president’s speech. Obama suggested passage of pending free trade pacts with both countries would be part of his “export promotion” plan – one plank in Obama’s larger attempt at economic recovery. [A critique of that plan from Tufts Professor Timothy Wise]. A bigger surprise was passing mention of an upcoming visit to three Latin American countries in March. Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador are all expected to receive the US president on that trip, which Obama said will “forge new alliances across the Americas.” (Note: EFE, in its reporting, misquotes the president as saying “new alliances for progress” which, while keeping with the JFK theme of last night, would have had a quite specific and distinct historical meaning).

Clinton in Mexico: "No Alternative" to Taking on Traffickers

The United States has pledged its continued support to Mexico, urging it to, in the AP’s words, “stay the course” in its ongoing fight against drug trafficking organizations. That war, according to the Mexican government’s own statistics, has taken the lives of at least 34,600 people since current President Felipe Calderon entered office in 2006. 2010 proved to be the deadliest of Calderon’s four-year military campaign as the death toll surpassed 15,000 – a 60% increase from the previous year.

Nevertheless, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, meeting with her counterpart Patricia Espinosa in the colonial city of Guanajuato Monday, said there was “no alternative” to continuing the fight as it is currently being waged. Clinton:

“It is messy. It causes lots of terrible things to be on the news…The drug traffickers are not going to give up without a terrible fight. And they do things that are just barbaric — like beheading people. It is meant to intimidate. It is meant to have the public say, 'Just leave them alone and they won't bother me.' But a president cannot do that.”

As the New York Times reports, those words are in marked contrast to the sorts of doubts expressed by some US diplomats in recent years, as disclosed in various cables released by the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Among other things, the Times says those cables demonstrated diplomatic concern that the country “suffered from squabbling and mistrust among agencies, intelligence missteps, and a less than complete dedication to the rule of law.” While Ms. Clinton declined to address the Wikileaks cables in the press conference which followed her private talks with Foreign Minister Espinosa, the Washington Post reports that the US Sec. of State did say she believed the Mexican government “is making progress” in ensuring human rights are protected while prosecuting its war on criminal organizations. She then qualified that statement saying “more needed to be done,” specifically citing the need for military rights violators to be tried in civilian courts. The US, said Clinton, “stands ready” to assist Mexico in creating a better-equipped, better trained judiciary.

After her meeting in Guanajuato, Clinton traveled on to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Ms. Clinton’s visit to Mexico coincided with the release of Human Rights Watch’s 2011 World Report. In a press release accompanying HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth’s presentation of the group’s report in Brussels, Mexico is, somewhat interestingly, the only Latin American country that receives a mention. HRW:

“[T]he Obama administration in its first year simply ignored the human rights conditions on the transfer of military aid to Mexico under the Mérida Initiative even though Mexico failed to prosecute abusive military officials in civilian courts as required. Only in the administration's second year did it withhold some aid.”

In its specific Mexico country report, HRW has more details about a troubling human rights situation in the country. Rather than improving, as Ms. Clinton suggested, HRW’s evaluation depicts a situation that has been moving in the opposite direction:

“Journalists, human rights defenders, and migrants are increasingly the targets of attacks by criminal groups and members of security forces, yet Mexico has failed to provide these vulnerable groups with protection or adequately investigate the crimes against them.”

And finally more Mexico-related Wikileaks cables also greeted the Sec. of State upon her arrival. This week reports on a new 2010 cable from the US Embassy in Mexico, detailing President Calderon’s Feb. 17, 2010 discussions with US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about violence in Ciudad Juarez. Among other things, the discussion’s highlight growing intelligence sharing through the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC). “Representatives from EPIC have been going daily to the Federal Police command and control center to assess mechanisms to transmit operational intelligence,” the US Embassy reports. El País, meanwhile, reports on new cables discussing how Mexican intelligence services have granted permission to the FBI to interrogate detained, undocumented migrants about matters of “international terrorism.” More on both reports in Juarez’s El Diario.

To other stories:

· Human Rights Watch’s Americas Director, José Miguel Vivanco, talks with BBC Mundo about the 13 Latin American country reports released as part of HRW’s 2011 World Report. Among other things, Vivanco says there must be more public criticism and less “diplomatic silence” about rights violations which continue in the region. He cites recent criticisms of the 18^-month Enabling Law in Venezuela by the OAS as a positive form of public criticism that, at least momentarily, has caused President Hugo Chavez rethink the term on his special decree powers. But, says Vivanco, countries like Cuba and Venezuela, much criticized in the US, must not be the only ones to be criticized for their human rights shortcomings. Specifically, Vivanco says serious human rights questions remain in Colombia and should, with others, receive equal attention in the US. A selection of particular country reports of interest can be found here: Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, and Venezuela. Some of the first major English-language news reports on the Latin America section of HRW’s annual report focus on Venezuela (AP) and Colombia (Miami Herald).

· The Washington Office on Latin America, the Center for International Policy, and the US Office on Colombia have released a new joint statement on Colombia – specifically re: new discussions about a US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, certain to be on the agenda when Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzón travels to Washington next week. The DC-based organization’s say an FTA should not be supported until efforts to stem violence against trade unionists, human rights defenders, and Afro and indigenous peoples show “significant results.” Forty-two trade unionists were killed in 2010, according to the Colombian National Labor School (ENS). Over 105 indigenous persons were killed over that same period while advocacy groups estimate that there continue to be at least 6000 individuals actively participating in armed groups operating in 29 Colombian departments.

· The AP with a long report on the case of accused drug kingpin Walid Malek – the Venezuelan national detained in Colombia and the process of being extradited back to Venezuela, much to the (quiet) chagrin of US officials.

· The AFP on Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s three-day visit to France this week, just days after the term of his own – but much less discussed – special decree powers ended this week. (A total of 37 pieces of legislation were passed by decree during Colombia’s “state of exception” which began on Dec. 7 – and was extended on January 6, after devastating floods). Meeting with President Sarkozy on Wednesday, Santos and his French counterpart are expected to take up issues of monetary policy, transportation, education, technology, the environment and drug trafficking. On Thursday, Santos travels on to Davos for the World Economic Forum.

· Reuters reports that Peru has become the latest South American country to offer recognition to a Palestinian state. Like right-leaning Chile before it, Peru did not, however, specify if it would do so according to Palestine’s pre-1967 borders.

· Honduras’s El Heraldo reports on the arrival of the FBI to Honduras in the coming days to begin advising the country’s Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal (DNIC).

· The Miami Herald on new Cuba Wikileaked cables re: issues of corruption in the Cuban government.

· EFE reports that the Ecuadorean indigenous movement CONAIE is opposing President Rafael Correa’s decision to hold popular referendum. In a statement Monday, the group said it will advocate a “No” vote with respect to the questions under consideration.

· Jaime Daremblum at the Hudson Institute comments on Arturo Valenzuela’s talk at the Brookings Institution a couple of weeks ago, expresses his general displeasure with the Obama administration’s Lat Am policy at the Weekly Standard. One throw-away line from Mr. Daremblum: “Turning to Honduras, Valenzuela described the 2009 ouster of President Manuel Zelaya as a ‘coup d’état.’ By now, given all we’ve learned about the details surrounding that event, U.S. officials should be embarrassed to label it a ‘coup.’” And like conservative commentator Carlos Alberto Montaner in today’s Miami Herald, Daremblum says he believes “the Venezuela-Iran alliance represents the biggest threat to regional stability since the Cold War.” To be fair, only Montaner says Brazil is part of the “dangerous game” as well.

· While some are calling for a reduced UN presence in Haiti – particularly in the country’s national political process, Andres Oppenheimer, in the Miami Herald, says the international community (OAS, UN, and “other big donors”) needs to increase its presence in Haiti and should even organize the country’s runoff election (He uses post-WW II Japan as an historical comparison). If that fails, Oppenheimer’s next solution: “[T]here should be a temporary U.N. trusteeship, which for political etiquette reasons, should be called anything else but that.”

· And finally, the AP on the death of Bishop Samuel Ruiz Monday. Known as the “Bishop of the Poor,” the longtime defender of indigenous rights is most remembered internationally for having served as the mediator in peace talks between the government and the EZLN (Zapatistas) during the 1990s.

Toward a US-Mexico-Colombia Security Triangle?

The Washington Post this weekend reports on what it calls the training of thousands of Mexican policemen, soldiers, and court officers by Colombia. Both American and Colombian officials indicate that the majority of such training has occurred in Mexico, but, according to Post correspondent Juan Forero, “in a sign of how serious the threat posed by the Mexican cartels has become,” a growing number of of Mexican soldiers and policemen are now traveling to Colombia to train with the Andean country’s “battle-tested police commandos.”

With the latest Mexico-Colombia parallel, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos:

“Mexico has what we had some years ago, which are very powerful cartels. What we can provide is the experience that we have had dismantling those cartels, training intelligence officers, training judicial police.”

Through Colombia, the paper says the Obama administration may have found a politically expedient – and backdoor – way to aid in Mexico’s ongoing fight against drug cartels. Indeed, the Post says US assistance to Colombia helps pay for at least part of the training being given to Mexican security forces in Colombia (or by Colombians). Avoided, however, is protest by many in Mexico about a significant US troop presence in Mexican territory. Roderic Ai Camp who an expert on the Mexican military and professor at California’s Claremont McKenna College:

“Given the loss of half of Mexico's national territory to the United States in the 19th century, and the Mexican army's hesitant cooperation with their American counterparts, the Colombians are a logical proxy.”

But there is another part to this story that also seems worth noting, and perhaps complicating the picture a bit: the emergence of a more independent Colombia with its own regional aspirations and interests. As noted here on a number of occasions Juan Carlos Santos has been resolute in defining a more independent regional foreign policy. Notably, he – in contrast his North American allies – has successfully renovated relations with his neighbors in Venezuela. Today Colombia’s El Tiempo publishes an EFE report on the latest such developments which include a meetings this week between Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera and Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami to continue joint analysis of security issues on the countries’ shared border, two months after signing of a bilateral counter-narcotics. (Wednesday’s talks are to specifically focus on issues of kidnapping and extortion). EFE (by way of Sao Paulo’s Folha) also reports today that Juan Manuel Santos is quietly seeking the incorporation of his country into Mercosur. According to Marco Aurelio Garcia, the mind behind Brazil’s push for regional integration, the plan is part of the Santos government’s attempt at “radically changing” the direction of Colombia’s international agenda and was part of discussions between Dilma Rousseff and Santos at Dilma’s Jan. 1 inauguration.

Or, as the Washington Post writes re: growing Mexico-Colombia security relations, “Colombia's shift reflects its desire to demonstrate an ability to help resolve regional problems instead of being seen as simply a recipient of U.S. aid.”

To be sure, there are plenty of questions that remain about the type of security training being offered to Mexico by Colombia – matters of human rights protection among them. Those questions may begin to surface as the US and Mexico continue security talks. (Hillary Clinton travels to Guanajuato, Mexico today to discuss issues which will include joint cooperation against organized crime). Questions about a US-Mexico-Colombia security triangle, may also come out next month when, as AFP reports, Colombian Defense Minister Rivera travels to Washington to meet with US Sec. of Defense Robert Gates about counter-narcotics and security issues.

In other issues of regional interest:

· The New York Times reports on a call from the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillary, to Mexico, demanding that an investigation into the disappearance of 40 Central American migrants in Oaxaca last month be carried out immediately. The disappeared were among a group of some 250 individuals – mostly Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans – who were traveling North on a freight train in southern Oaxaca in mid-December. According to Navi Pillary, “the train operator demanded money from the migrants and, after scoffing at the sum they mustered, the train was boarded a short while later by armed gunmen who robbed and beat some of the migrants and abducted 40 of them.” Mexico’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva tells the AP that the government has condemned the killings and is now conducting a “rigorous investigation” -- this after first denying the abductions ever-occurred. CNN notes that two individuals suspected of participating in the kidnappings were allegedly arrested in Oaxaca earlier this month. The Latin American Herald Tribune says four Central American migrants who escaped abduction have also now identified 10 other gang members involved in the attack. CNN adds that the demands of Ms. Pillary came just one day after Mexican lawmakers “grilled” the head of the country's National Migration Institute over both the Oaxaca abductions and the August massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants in the border state of Tamaulipas. And today the LAHT reports Honduran and Mexican officials agreed over the weekend to establish a “high-level security group” together, focused on attacks against migrants by organized criminal groups. The group’s objective will be to improve the “coordination of communications on security matters, bolster intelligence on the payment of ransom, improve bi-national extradition procedures and inform migrants of their rights, as well as about the dangers they face on the journey north.”

· In Haiti, the first public words of Jean-Claude Duvalier came Friday at a press conference in the hills above Port-au-Prince. The AP notes that Duvalier remained vague about the reason for his return, saying only that he had come to “participate by [Haiti’s] side” in its national reconstruction. Unexpectedly, Duvalier finished his speech by trotting out three American lawyers to field questions from the press. Among those who have been brought on to work for the ex-dictator is former US congressman and presidential nominee, Bob Barr. More from TIME which features Barr, attorney Mike Puglise, and Atlanta lawyer Ed Marger – the lead consultant and a longtime Duvalier family friend. When asked why Duvalier had returned, Marger suggested it may in part be related to the former leader’s frozen assets, reported on last week. But according to Marger, Duvalier is not interested in the monies for personal gain – rather he wants to donate it to Haiti’s reconstruction. On Bob Barr’s website, this outrageous statement: “Duvalier also stated that Barr, Marger and Puglise will be representing him in bringing his message of hope to the world.” Atlanta local news with interviews with Barr and Marger before their departure Friday. And new reports on the case against Duvalier from the Miami Herald and the AP, which say President Rene Preval, in his first public comment about Baby Doc’s return, said he supports international calls for the former dictator to be prosecuted.

· The other half of the Haiti crisis involves Preval himself who, as the Herald reports, is now being pressured by the US to schedule a runoff between Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly. According to diplomatic sources, talks have begun to “request that the Organization of American States start consultations at the Permanent Council level in order to declare [Preval] illegitimate based on the Democratic Charter of the Americas,” should he stay in power after Feb. 7. For its part, the US appears to have already taken steps in that direction, revoking the visas of a dozen unnamed Haitian officials over the weekend. State Dept. spokesman PJ Crowley on that decision: “To the extent that there are individuals who are connected with episodes of violence or corruption…we will not hesitate to take appropriate action.” Commentators on the US Right, meanwhile, are lining up in a rare show of support for the Obama administration’s new hard line stance via a vis Haiti. The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady praises statements from Susan Rice, the US’s ambassador to the UN, demanding that the Preval government follow the OAS’s recommendation to drop Jude Celestin from a future runoff vote. Earlier last week, Roger Noriega’s intervention on the matter slyly – and without documentation – threw Venezuela into the mix to rally the conservatives. Noriega: “Sources in the American government know that Préval recently sought $25 million from Chávez to bankroll the runoff campaign of his handpicked successor, Jude Célestin.”

· In verifiable happenings in Venezuela, the AP with reports on rival pro and anti-Chavez demonstrations in Caracas Sunday, marking the 53^rd anniversary of the fall of former dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez.

· AFP reports on recent statements by Colombian VP Angelino Garzon about the growing power of armed “successor” groups. According to Garzon, the new criminal groups result from a “diabolical alliance” between former paramilitaries, those involved in organized crime and narco-trafficking, ex-guerrillas, and former soldiers and police officers.”

· The AP on the Cuban government’s decision to suspend indefinitely all mail service to the US. The decision extends a November ban and expands the measure to include packages as well as letters.

· In Guatemala, BBC reports on the beginning of a corruption trial in Guatemala City against former president Alfonso Portillo. Portillo’s former defense minister, Eduardo Arevalo, and former finance minister, Manuel Maza, are also on trial for allegedly embezzling some $15 million in state funds.

· The Economist (here and here) slams the United States decision last week to oppose Bolivia’s attempt to amend a 1961 UN Convention – a move that would decriminalize coca-leaf chewing. Meanwhile, Just the Facts posts and analyzes newly released US government figures documenting changes in the production of actual cocaine in the Andes.

· At Upside Down World, Mel Zelaya’s former Minister of Culture and active FNRP member Prof. Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle calls on the Resistance to support the current process of constitutional reform as a means toward a national constituent assembly. Pastor Fasquelle:

“The reform can serve as a mobilizing tool; the debate around the reformed amendment is a pedagogical necessity that should bring us closer to our goals…Opposing the reform would be unpopular and unproductive at this moment. It is necessary to prevent division within our movement and to turn our attention to the potential uses and service of the amendment.”

· Finally, with Obama preparing for his State of the Union address, free trade agreements are on the mind of many opinion makers. Robert Kagan becomes the latest to argue the Obama administration must finish an FTA with Colombia, in the Washington Post. Meanwhile, in the Wall Street Journal, two Democratic operatives, one-time Clinton chief-of-staff Mack McLarty (who identifies himself as the man responsible for having brought new Obama chief-of-staff Bill Daley to the White House under Bill Clinton to lead the NAFTA ratification process) and former Joe Biden and Bill Clinton aide Nelson Cunningham echo that opinion in urging the administration to move on trade deals with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea.