US Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) William R. Brownfield is in El Salvador today, the second stop on a four-country tour through Mesoamerica. Brownfield arrives in San Salvador from Guatemala where he met yesterday with top officials there – among them President Alvaro Colom. He travels next to Honduras and then Colombia, a country in which he recently served as US ambassador.
More than any other, the issue of “security” unites the assistant secretary’s schedule this week. In Guatemala, Brownfield visited the municipality of Mixco to meet with its mayor, Amilcar Rivera, about a U.S.-supported “Model Police Precinct” program operating there. In Honduras, the State Dept. says Brownfield will be meeting with the country’s Secretary of State for Security, Oscar Alvarez, and will participate in a Bilateral Central American Regional Security Initiative (Merida/CARSI) Task Force chaired by U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens and Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa. And in Colombia meetings are planned with the country’s new top prosecutor, Viviane Morales, the Commander of the Armed Forces, Admiral Edgar Cely, and Director of the Colombian National Police General, Oscar Naranjo. The objective, says DOS: to “explore avenues for enhanced regional cooperation” and “take into account lessons learned in Colombia.”
But with President Obama planning to visit El Salvador in March, Brownfield’s stopover today in El Salvador may be of most significance. (Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, also plans to visit the country next week ahead of President Obama’s visit). The official schedule says Brownfield will meet with Salvadoran Vice Minister of Justice Henry Campos, Prison Director Douglas Moreno, Police Commissioner Carlos Ascensio, and Attorney General Romeo Barahona to discuss ongoing efforts to build law enforcement capacity in El Salvador. The US assistant secretary will also be visiting the Transnational Anti-Gang headquarters and the US-run International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), in the news last week further south in the region.
In few countries – even in the increasingly violent Central America – have issues of citizen (in) security become a more high profile issue than in El Salvador. Worrying numbers from a poll published by Salvador’s El Faro last week revealed that if both economic and security concerns continue to ineffectively addressed, 45.6% of Salvadorans would support a military takeover of the government. The highly respected editor of El Faro, Carlos Dada, commenting on those results in opinion piece last week, called organized crime, insecurity, and poverty the “the greatest threats” to El Salvador today. And his words demonstrate the urgency gripping many:
“With the advance of organized crime we are rapidly approaching a crossroads: either we consolidate the State or we leave it for someone else to destroy, in the name of the country, but seizing citizen desperation, since it can now be seen that many do not believe in democracy if their most urgent demands are not satisfied.”
But questions remain about how such concerns will be addressed – as well as by whom. The US and the Salvadoran military, for starters, have become two increasingly active pieces of the security puzzle. In mid-January, US ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte, made what some are calling an unprecedented television appeal to Salvadoran Attorney General Romeo Barahona, requesting that he sign off on approving the creation of new $5 million, US-backed wiretapping center in the country. (The attorney general finally agreed on Jan. 29). For his part, President Mauricio Funes, also late last month, indicated that the army would remain deployed “indefinitely” to handle public security duties.
Meanwhile, after both Bill Brownfield and Arturo Valenzuela leave San Salvador, President Mauricio Funes heads to Colombia. On his agenda there, according to early reports, will be talks about how Colombia might provide assistance and expertise to the Salvadoran government in its fight against organized crime.
No evidence yet to suggest El Salvador is seeking the sort of direct training which Colombia appears to now be providing to Mexico, but – for better or worse – that may be a sign of things to come.
To other stories:
· On Colombia, Adam Isacson, in his Just the Facts podcast this week, has details about multiple FARC hostage releases that are expected to occur in the coming days. As Adam discusses, the FARC have asked President Santos – in one of the more explicit mentions of possible dialogue in recent memory – to “seize the opportunity” and move toward some sort of peace talks that would “allow for a political solution” to the decades-long conflict. Aiding in this week’s releases will be the International Red Cross, the Brazilian military, and ex-Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba. The latter has gone so far as to say that, should this week’s operations be successful, all of the FARC’s remaining hostages could be freed by the middle of the year.
· In neighboring Venezuela, a new Consultores 21 poll suggests a significant decline in President Hugo Chavez’s popularity. According to a Nuevo Herald report on the poll (conducted between 19 Nov and 6 Dec 2010), 63% of Venezuelans believe the situation in the country has worsened while 56% of respondents call the president’s management of the country “poor.” Full survey results available here.
· Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota was also in Venezuela Monday, meeting with his counterpart Nicolas Maduro to discuss issues of regional integration. The meeting was the first between representatives of the two countries since Dilma Rousseff took power on Jan. 1. Issues of agricultural development, housing, banking, and telecommunications were all discussed, says Infolatam. Brazil’s foreign minister also said he would continue advocating for Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur.
· Meanwhile, there is new speculation that Mercosur may soon be starting talks with the European Union about a major trade deal. The executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America, Alicia Bárcena, was in Brussels last week to discuss ways of strengthening economic relations between the Latin America and the EU. And this week the EU’s top trade official, Karel de Gutch is in Paraguay to meet with President Fernando Lugo before continuing on to Uruguay. According to Mercopress, a possible EU-Mercosur trade deal was among the items discussed.
· On the issue of trade in the US, President Barack Obama reiterated his commitment to free trade deals with Colombia and Panama while speaking to members of the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington Monday – although the AP notes the president was short on specifics, or a timeline on those pending trade deals. As the Washington Post notes, the mention was followed by a Senate floor speech by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging the president to “do more than promise to ‘pursue’” the Colombia and Panama deals.
· US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in his first visit to Brazil Monday, met with President Dilma Rousseff, and the Wall Street Journal suggests that US and Brazil may start “speaking with a common voice” about an undervalued Chinese currency at the next meetings of the G-20.
· Brazil’s former president, Lula da Silva made the 2011 World Social Forum in Senegal his first international trip since leaving office just over one month ago. Página 12 has more on the re-emergence of Lula the fiery trade union leader, who had strong words of criticism for the world’s richest nations, the IMF, and the economic prescriptions that made up the Washington Consensus. About the WSF, in particular, Lula da Silva: “These are our chance to meet and discuss the ideas that others say have been lost. In the Forum we come together to say that another world is both possible and necessary. This is a dream that we will never abandon.”
· In Rio, the AP yesterday on the takeover of nine more favelas by state security forces Sunday, apparently with little resistance.
· In Mexico, the LA Times reports that the PAN has won the governorship of the state of Baja California Sur – but, strangely enough, with a candidate, Marcos Covarrubias, who only recently defected from the left-leaning PRD.
· In Haiti, the AFP reports a diplomatic passport has been issued by the Haitian government to Jean-Bertrand Aristide. “The passport was issued on Monday. All the formalities have been completed,” an unnamed official tells the news agency. Aristide’s lawyer, who some reports say was in Haiti this weekend filing necessary paperwork for the passport, says that, if it’s true, he is still awaiting confirmation from the government. Asked if Aristide would be back in Haiti soon, Ira Kurzban tells the AFP, “I think we're getting closer, but we're not there yet.” Meanwhile, the term of outgoing President Rene Preval has been officially extended 3-months, until May 14. As the AP notes, an emergency law passed by members of Preval's former party in an expiring Senate allows him to remain in office for up to three more months because his 2006 inauguration was delayed. And debate continues over the validity of the CEP’s decision last week to move Michel Martelly into a second-round runoff against Mirlande Manigat. In a statement Monday, the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti says the CEP did not officially approve a runoff vote as only four of eight CEP officials actually signed on to the decision last week. More from the CEPR.
· Amnesty International says a Honduran human rights lawyer with the Association for a More Just Society has received new threats against his life, via text message. While at The Nation, Greg Grandin comments on on-going concerns about human rights and democracy in the country, as well as the “restoration” of the old cold war alliance between the landed aristocracy and death squads, today “updated to serve the new bio-fuel economy.”
· Amnesty International also has a new statement urging the release of political prisoners in Cuba.
· In Colombia, the Miami Herald reports on the illegal gold mining by guerrilla groups and organized crime syndicates while IPS reports on growing social movement mobilization against large scale mining.
· And finally, Infolatam previews the upcoming electoral calendar across the region.
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