The LA Times and Reuters with reports this morning on the first of five FARC hostage releases that are expected this week. On Wednesday, city councilman Marcos Baquero, kidnapped in June 2009, was released at what the LA Times describes as an “undisclosed location in the nation's eastern jungle region.” Shortly thereafter he was flown to his home town of Villavicencio, to be reunited with his family. Colombia’s El Tiempo reports on the few public statements Baquero made there, as well as the statements made by Eduardo Pizarro, the government’s representative for the Baquero operation. The latter called this week’s expected releases “a big step” toward the release of all 16 hostages currently being held by the FARC.
For her part, ex-senator Piedad Cordoba, the principal mediator for this week’s releases (with the aid of Brazil and the International Red Cross) made no official statements yesterday, only posting a message on Twitter about the success of Wednesday’s operation before traveling on to Caquetá to carry out a second mission that should see two more hostages freed shortly. More from Colombia’s Semana.
Regarding the larger picture of how this week’s releases may or may not affect the possibility of future peace negotiations with the FARC, the Times suggests some optimism on both sides of the conflict. As mentioned earlier in the week, the FARC posted a communiqué online earlier this week calling on President Juan Manuel Santos to “take advantage of the opportunity to start a dialogue that would permit a political solution to this grave conflict.” Sources at the US Embassy tell the paper that Santos is also coming under increasing pressure from the US to restart negotiations. As Times correspondent Chris Kraul notes, “U.S. military aid, which has totaled $5 billion since 2000, is tapering off, shifting more of the financial burden for the war onto Colombia.”
One final note on US-Colombia relations, unrelated to the FARC but interesting nonetheless. The Miami Herald says today the US is “opening a new front in the battle against Colombian cocaine producers.” It’s not a front in the military sense, however, but rather a new legal unit that set up to go after some 30 “emerging groups” that have replaced many of Colombia’s old drug cartels. The new investigation will target these so-called “Bandas Criminales” (or, BACRIMs) and will apparently be run by three prosecutors in Miami’s US Attorney’s office. It will also be collaborating with the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Colombian authorities. The head of that office, Willy Ferrer, was recently in Colombia with senior DEA officials, the Herald reports.
To other stories:
· More details Wednesday from US Assistant Secretary of State Bill Brownfield about a new US security program for Central America. In Tegucigalpa Wednesday, Brownfield said the US would give an additional $200 million to the sub-region to, in the AP’s words, “enable more collaboration and coordination with Central America in the fight against illegal drugs.” Brownfield again highlighted the fact that this new initiative would not replace aid already being given under existing initiatives. According to the wire service, the U.S. Congress approved $700 million for Mexico for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 as part of the Mérida Initiative. $175 million was allocated for Central American, the Dominican Republic and Haiti for that same two year period. Hillary Clinton, in Mexico recently, made a still unclear mention of $500 million in (new?) US aid for Mexico (the AP says the administration is requesting $450 million for Mexico this year). And, before yesterday, there was an administration request for $100 million for Central America this year. It’s unclear to me whether the new $200 million announced by Brownfield is in addition to those funds, or will be the new 2011 total US request for Central America. It’s also worth noting that Brownfield says the US plans to petition for additional security funding for the region from Colombia, Mexico, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the OAS. (The EU has also committed significant monies already). El Heraldo with more on the Honduras-specific aspects of Brownfield’s visit, which will now apparently last two days before a final stop in Colombia.
· Meanwhile, it now appears Guatemala’s Alvaro Colom will be joining Mauricio Funes and Barack Obama when the latter president visits El Salvador in March. Prensa Libre says Colom has not yet received an “official invitation” but plans to go just the same to talk about issues of migration, narco-trafficking, and the regional fight against organized crime. Following Bill Brownfield’s visit to Guatemala on Monday, there’s also been some talk that a new US-backed security plan for Central America might look like a regional version of Guatemala’s UN-backed anti-impunity commission, CICIG. I’m told replicating that plan on a regional level is highly unlikely, despite statements from Guatemalan officials, including the president’s spokesperson. Also something that does not appear to be on the current US-Central America anti-drug/anti-crime agenda: any talk about steps toward legalization.
· More on Guatemala and organized crime in a long report from the Washington Post today. The focus is the on-going “state of siege” in Guatemala’s northern province of Alta Verapaz. Worrying for some will be the Post’s suggestion that the militarization of Guatemala’s drug war may soon extend beyond Alta Verapaz:
“Colom plans to extend troop deployments to other conflict zones in the country, officials say, militarizing the drug war here and reviving the Guatemalan army after 36 years of civil war, decades of human rights abuses and a still-unfinished peace process.”
Even before the recent speculation about new US security aid for the region, the paper says DEA operations in Guatemala have been expanding – in many cases moving military hardware, like helicopters, out of Colombia and into Guatemala. The DEA claims such operations have been quite successful with the number of known drug shipments arriving in Guatemala by light aircraft dropping from more than 50 to five or six in 2010. That according to one U.S. official. The problem: cutting off air shipment has led to new battles for control of over-land trafficking routes. One US official tells the paper he now estimates that 70% of the Guatemala-Mexico border is controlled by the Zetas.
· On organized crime in Mexico, In Sight Crime with analysis on the Trans-Border Institute’s latest report on violence there.
· At the south end of the Mesoamerican isthmus, news that Panama will spend $16 million to purchase four drone aircrafts from the US so as to monitor drug trafficking activities. Reports suggest that the operating cost of the drones could be as high as $93 million during the first year.
· EFE reports Guatemala is challenging reports from Mexico that its military “rescued” some 40 Guatemalan migrants in the northern city of Reynosa this week. Rather, the Guatemalan government says the persons were staying voluntarily at a safe house before being detained.
· Lucila Santos, a fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, on what she sees as positive changes in Argentina’s handling of citizen security issues, namely the de-linking of internal security from issues of “defense.”
· Peter Kornbluh, at the National Security Archive, with an update on the Luis Posada Carilles perjury/immigration fraud trial in El Paso, focusing on the important collaboration that has emerged between US and Cuban officials because of the trial.
· On Cuba, Reuters reports that the Cuban government not only unblocked island acesss to dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez’s Generación Y but has unblocked a variety of other anti-government sites as well. No comment yet from the Cuban government about the changes but they seem significant nevertheless.
· The Wall Street Journal on worries of inflation in Brazil and Argentina. The former went so far as to announce spending cuts of about $30 billion for 2011 on Wednesday. The cuts, according to the Journal, will target “earmarks tacked onto the budget by lawmakers, and controlling administrative costs, including a slowdown in hiring for the country's massive public sector.”
· IPS with a report on the Peruvian government’s decision to begin paying out reparations to victims and survivors of the country's two-decade long counterinsurgency war. According to the report, the elderly in rural villages of the country’s highlands will be prioritized. Recommendations about the reparations process were recently presented by Jesús Aliaga, executive secretary of the High Level Multisectoral Commission (CMAN), to the government. IPS: “Although collective reparations have been made in the form of infrastructure projects at a community level, the individual damages have been delayed because the official registry of victims has not yet been completed.”
· I recently mentioned a report, posted by CIPER Chile, about a new regional campaign being led by retired Uruguayan military officers and seeking an end to the prosecution of their military colleagues around Latin America for dirty war rights abuses. Página 12 follows up yesterday with news that the investigative journalist who wrote that piece, Roger Rodriguez, has come under threat from the group of ex-Uruguayan officers. Earlier this week the officers decided to publish the identification numbers, addresses, and telephone numbers of Rodriguez and his family – what the human rights group SERPAJ-Uruguay has called “a threat” to the journalist’s “personal security.”
· And finally, Haiti. Reuters reports that the US has come out in opposition to the possible return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, saying it would be “an unfortunate distraction” ahead of a March 20 runoff vote. Journalist Isabeau Doucet writes at The Guardian on just what the scene in the country may look like if, or when, Haiti’s most popular political figure returns. And about the much criticized and ongoing election process, the Center for Economic and Policy Research again on the dubious, but little reported, fact that four members of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) claim to have not signed the document “affirming the Council’s decision” on a second-round runoff. As the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti notes, “Article 8 of the CEP’s bylaws requires that the Council’s decisions be made by an ‘absolute majority of its [8] members.” If reports are correct, that appears to have never occurred.
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