Haitian officials now appear willing to issue former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide a diplomatic passport, setting the stage for a potential return of the popular leader after seven years in exile. In a letter apparently sent Monday to Haiti’s Foreign Affairs and Interior Ministries – as well as to reporters – Mr. Aristide’s lawyer in the US, Ira Kurzban, requested that the Haitian government “issue a diplomatic passport” to Mr. Aristide “immediately” and that "plans for his return commence.”
As of Monday evening, the AP says Haiti’s Interior Minister Paul-Antoine Bien-Aime had not yet received a copy of the letter, but noted, in writing, that if received, such a request would “be honored promptly.” Reuters, also speaking with Longchamp Monday evening, says President Preval and his Council of Ministers have agreed to issue a diplomatic passport to Aristide, should such a request be received. The New York Times calls that decision a “significant reversal” for the Preval government which has refused similar requests from Aristide in the past.
It’s also a decision which follows a series of significant events over the last three weeks in Haiti.
Just over three weeks ago, another Haitian leader, former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, made an unexpected return to Haiti after 25 years in exile, sparking significant controversy and a new investigation into embezzlement and rights abuses committed under the Duvalier regime. Last week, solidarity activists – among them current deputy UN envoy Dr. Paul Farmer, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and actor Danny Glover – issued a new call for Aristide’s return, taking out a full page ad in the Miami Herald requesting the Preval government issue a new passport to Mr. Aristide. While the ad makes no reference to Mr. Duvalier’s return, the signers claim there are new grassroots demands in Haiti for the former president's return, including a petition circulating among Haitian women which has collected some 20,000 signatures.
Monday’s news also comes on the heels of a Sunday trip by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Port-au-Prince. During her short visit, Ms. Clinton urged all three Haitian candidates – in addition to President Preval – to accept recommendations from the OAS which would drop the government’s candidate, Jude Celestin, from a second-round runoff. In a separate report Monday, the AP gets confirmation from senior US officials that the US appears willing to support the extension of Mr. Preval’s term in office past Feb. 7, should the election of his replacement be, in the AP’s words, “be proceeding fairly.”
An emergency law passed in May 2010 allows Preval to remain in power three months past the official end of his term.
When asked on Haitian radio about the possibility of Aristide returning to Haiti, Ms. Clinton said Sunday she was unaware of any such plans.
Ousted twice from the presidency – the last time in 2004 under what the Times describes as “intense pressure from the United States” – Mr. Aristide’s lawyer now says his client, a former priest to the poor, has a desire to simply return home as “a private citizen, to help his country.”
To other stories:
· The Washington Post Monday reports on significant budget cut proposals at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) that could “effectively eliminate” Project Gunrunner -- and Obama administration initiative which has sought to halt the flow of smuggled guns to Mexico. Administration officials say the current proposal is just that – a proposal – but those with close ties to the ATF say the agency is already bracing for significant cuts. Former senior ATF official James Cavanaugh on the possibility of cuts and the place of the ATF within the government bureaucracy:
“ATF is the ugly stepchild of every administration. It would really handicap the ATF. It's a small agency and it's a lean machine. There are not a lot of agents and inspectors. There is not a lot of fat. With ATF, it would be an amputation.”
As the Post highlights, Arizona officials broke up a major drug smuggling ring last week which included more than a dozen individuals. Project Gunrunner is believed to have aided in that bust through its requirement that gun dealers report bulk sales of semiautomatic rifles. The project has also provided aid to Mexican officials in tracing guns seized by officials in Mexico’s ongoing drug wars, although it has also been heavily criticized for its narrow focus and poor management.
· For TIME, Tim Padgett examines whether or not La Familia is really on the decline – or perhaps even dead.
· The AP with a report on violence in Ciudad Juarez one year after the notorious massacre of 15 teenagers at a birthday party. Those murders sparked significant controversy after Mexican officials suggested the young people were involved in trafficking activities and were thus killed by a rival gang. As the AP notes, there is no evidence the youths were the targets, and police were later forced to backtrack, contending that the killers may have attacked the wrong house.
· The LA Times confirms the victory of the PRD in Guerrero’s gubernatorial election, held Sunday. With nearly all ballots tallied, the left-leaning party’s Angel Aguirre appears to have finished some 13 percentage points ahead of the PRI.
· Colombian VP Angelino Garzon was in Washington late last week. The Office of Vice President Joe Biden has a short readout of talks held with Garzon Friday. WOLA’s Adam Isacson, on a new Just the Facts podcast, has a bit more on the Garzon’s visit, including a suggestion made by Colombia that if the US does not pass an FTA with Colombia this year, the country will more aggressively pursue trade accords with other nations. Indeed, there has been recent talk that Colombia is pursuing the possibility of entering the Mercosur trade bloc – a move that would likely restrain its ability to negotiate a bilateral deal with the US.
· This week a US visit by another top Colombian official, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera. Rivera is in-country for five days and, in addition to Washington, will be making (or has made) stops at US Southern Command in Miami and at a National Guard operations center in Fort Worth, Texas.
· The Wall Street Journal reports on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s first foreign visit, to Argentina. Energy and technology issues seem to have topped the agenda between the two South American leaders. Argentina’s Página 12 with more, including discussion of Dilma’s visits with human rights groups in Argentina, most prominent among them, leaders of the Madres y Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo and representatives of the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS).
· At the Honduras Human Rights blog, a new interview with rights activist and COFADEH founder, Bertha Oliva.
· New Wikileaks cables on Honduras, reported on by El País, suggest Manuel Zelaya was an important intermediary between the US and ALBA nations in getting the latter – particularly Cuba and Venezuela – to agree to a US drafted resolution on the terms of Cuba’s re-admittance to the OAS in June 2009. [Cuba has since made no move to re-enter. And Zelaya has challenged the depiction that he was in any way “pushing the US agenda” by acting as an intermediary]. The Honduras cables also detail US accounts of Honduras’s entry into ALBA, which the paper describes as the cause of a rupture between Roberto Micheletti and Manuel Zelaya.
· At Foreign Policy, Arturo Lopez-Levy argues that this month’s easing of Cuba travel and remittance restrictions by the Obama administration was the “best Cuba policy decision the US has made in years.”
· And finally, an interesting IPS report on a growing number of Brazilian international development initiatives both around Latin America and in Africa. According to the country’s first official report on Brazilian Cooperation for International Development, total funds dedicated annually to international organizations, technical and humanitarian assistance, and scholarships for foreign students grew 129 percent between 2005 and 2009, from 158 million dollars to 362 million dollars. That’s still just 0.02 percent of Brazilian GDP (the US by comparison dedicates 0.7% of GDP to foreign assistance). But what may partly differentiate Brazilian development initiatives from those in the North is Brazil’s use of debt cancellation and a preference for channeling monies through international and regional bodies. There’s also a significant difference in language, with Brazilian officials rarely speaking of “aid” or “donations.” Marco Farani, director of the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation (ABC) in Brazil’s Foreign Ministry, as quoted by IPS: “The term donor implies a hierarchy, while our cooperation is different, horizontal, between partners, and based on a commitment to solidarity.”
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