On Saturday, Dilma Rousseff assumed the presidency of Brazil becoming the first female to be inaugurated in Latin America’s largest country. The New York Times says her principal challenge lies in “balancing an ambitious domestic agenda” while at once “securing Brazil’s global position.” Thus far, continuity has been the most defining feature of the transition. The Inter-American Dialogue’s Michael Shifter tells the Times that Dilma’s “appointments, decisions and comments to date have been reassuring for those who were nervous that she would be tempted to pursue a radically different course from Lula.” Mercopress notes continuity on foreign policy matters, focusing on the new president’s promises to bolster regional integration through Unasur and Mercosur, “defend human rights,” and “strengthen multilateralism” by continuing to press for reform of international organizations, including the United Nations and its Security Council. The New York Times, however, adds differences between the new president and her predecessor may emerge with respect to Iran.
According to top foreign policy adviser, Marco Aurelio Garcia, another holdover from the Lula administration, Dilma will make her first international trips to Mercosur partners Uruguay and Argentina shortly.
Spain’s El País highlights continuity in Ms. Rousseff’s incoming economic team noting that three key economic figures will occupy top positions in the new government: former economy minister Antonio Palocci enters as Dilma’s chief of staff; Guido Mantega, a longtime Lula adviser is the new finance minister; and Alexandre Tombini takes over for Henrique Meirelles at the Central Bank where he has promised to keep inflation down while maintaining the Bank’s autonomy. But another possible point of difference with Ms. Rousseff in charge: the possibility of lowered interest rates.
Journalist Benjamin Dangl, at The Nation, examines continuity in the social agenda while also noting probable continuismo with the outgoing government’s not-so-progressive land and agriculture policies. Dangl:
“[Lula’s] powerful support for agribusiness, particularly soy and corn, over small farms and landless farmers has been one of his biggest failures as president. Thanks to Lula's encouragement, multinational agro-industrial corporations—including Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and Syngenta—have expanded their operations throughout the country, increasing their ties with large landowners and Brazilian politicians."
According to El País, 16 of 37 ministers in Dilma’s government held cabinet posts at one point during Lula da Silva’s two-term presidency. In the Brazilian Congress, meanwhile, Dilma will have the backing of 372 of 513 deputies and 60 of 81 senators, giving her a supermajority that will no doubt bring with it high expectations.
As for now former president Lula da Silva’s last days in office, the AP writes on Lula’s disappointment in US policies toward Latin America, expressed in his final days in office. According to Lula, the Obama administration’s approach to Latin America has “changed little or not at all” while the region went through “the world’s most important democratization process” over the last decade.
Catching up on the last week and a half:
· Stealing some of the spotlight at Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration Saturday was a brief handshake and “friendly” exchange between US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As AFP notes, the encounter came just three days after the US revoked the visa of Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the US – a “reprisal” for the Venezuelan government’s rejection of US ambassadorial nominee Larry Palmer. That outcome, says Professor Miguel Tinker Salas, was a “predictable” one from the moment Palmer’s comments about Venezuela-FARC relations and “low morale” in the Venezuelan military went public in July. Professor Greg Weeks, meanwhile, argues fault for the latest diplomatic dispute lies squarely in Washington. Few details yet about what the Chavez and Clinton discussed Saturday, although the Venezuelan president did say the two “took advantage” of the time to speak about “two or three timely things.” Somewhat interestingly, photos of the encounter seem to suggest that two of the region’s right-leaning leaders and closest US allies, Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos and Chile’s Sebastian Pinera, may have helped to initiate the conversation.
· Domestically in Venezuela, the lame-duck National Assembly used its final days before Christmas to approve what the New York Times calls “a sweeping set of laws that impose penalties for spreading political dissent on the Internet, grant decree powers to President Hugo Chávez for 18 months and prevent legislators from breaking with his political movement.” The Economist calls the new legislation the acceleration of a “slow-motion coup.” One of the most contentious measures approved, the Defense of Political Sovereignty and National Self Determination Law, will, in the Times words, “prohibit political parties and nongovernmental organizations, including human rights groups, from receiving money from abroad.” Venezuelanalysis points out that organizations which promote and defend “political rights” are the specific subjects of the new legislation. International rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have already expressed their concerns. Talking to the Times about the new moves, Alejandro Velasco, an historian of Venezuela at NYU, offers his analysis, saying:
“Whereas before Chávez was largely content in creating parallel institutions, here the intent is far more focused on replacing or significantly refashioning existing institutions like universities, political parties and the media.”
Political Scientist Steve Ellner says new measures on NGO financing must be read in the broader context of ongoing US-Venezuelan tensions. As for the 18-month decree powers granted to Mr. Chavez, the AP says the first action taken by the president under the new powers was to “create a [$2.3 billion] fund for housing reconstruction after devastating floods and landslides.” Reuters adds this week that economic troubles in the country have led to the second devaluation of the bolivar in the last 12 months – an attempt to “attract foreign funds, improve its balance sheet and make the local private sector more competitive.”
· In neighboring Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos is interviewed by Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero. Topics of discussion include Santos’s cordiality with Hugo Chavez and growing cooperation between Colombia and Venezuela on security issues; US-Colombia relations which have expanded beyond security to areas such as education, technology, and the environment; growing Colombian security aide to Central America and Mexico; Alvaro Uribe; and the prospects for drug legalization. The AP in a brief on Venezuela and Colombia’s shared security concerns notes that the former’s drug arrests were up 40% from 2009, with most seizures originating in Colombia. On US-Colombia relations, The Raw Story with a must-read account, via Wikileaks, on the details of the US-Colombia bases deal announced in the summer of 2009, specifically the US’s quite concerted effort to skirt the need for Colombian congressional approval of the since failed deal. On the export of Colombia’s security model to Central America and Mexico, Kevin Young at Foreign Policy in Focus writes that the Colombianization of the region would entail dangers of re-militarization and human rights worries.
· The New York Times reports on more from the Wikileaks archives, specifically new cables which demonstrate how the Drug Enforcement Agency has been transformed into what the paper calls “a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies.” Nowhere is this more evident than in Panama where current President Ricardo Martinelli allegedly asked the DEA for help wiretapping his political opponents. [The Panamanian government denies the allegations]. In other Latin American countries including Nicaragua, Mexico, and Paraguay, meanwhile, governments have requested DEA intelligence aid against suspected drug traffickers and insurgent groups. The whole Times report is worth a look.
· The Washington Post’s William Booth on more Mexico Wikileaked cables from 2009 which detail the Mexican government’s request for US intelligence training – something the Mexican government has repeatedly denied Mexican military forces are receiving from the US.
· With claims of migrant abductions in Oaxaca still unresolved, the AP says Mexican government has announced its plans to “shake-up” its “corrupt-ridden” National Migration Institute. The reforms will include the firing of several top directors. AFP with more on migration issues, reporting on the creation of a bi-national High Level Security commission on migration to be formed between the Mexican and Honduran governments. For its part, Amnesty International has launched a new campaign to protect Fr. Alejandro Solalinde – the man who reported the most recent abductions in Oaxaca.
· A variety of reports on Bolivia’s “Gasolinazo” and Evo Morales’s decision to revoke a decree which had ended fuel subsidies after a week of protests from social organizations.
· Steven Dudley at InSight looks at 2010’s trends and highlights re: organized crime in the region.
· And the AP’s Jonathan Katz and journalist Pooja Bhatia with excellent pieces on Haiti’s year of devastation and crisis.
· More stories from the last week and a half as this week continues.
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