Members of the Bolivarian alliance, ALBA, gathered in Caracas, Venezuela last Friday, agreeing to what the Washington Post labels a “vague peace mission” aimed at “ending violence in Libya.” In a letter sent to the ALBA meeting, the Gadaffi government said it would consider some sort of still undefined outside diplomatic mission to resolve what looks increasingly like a civil war between pro-Gadaffi forces and anti-Gaddafi rebels.
At the ALBA meeting in Caracas Friday, AFP reports that Chavez suggested former US president Jimmy Carter or Cuban leader Fidel Castro help put together a possible peace commission.
The Post, however, follows the line offered by some international powers last week – namely the US and France – characterizing the Caracas meeting and its declaration against military intervention in Libya as hopelessly naïve. Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue tells the paper,
“There's a common bond of anti-U.S. sentiment that brings together Gaddafi with some figures in Latin America, including Chavez and Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. There is a sense of standing up to the superpower, which is the United States, and that's created some sort of solidarity.”
Michael Shifter, along with Douglas Farah, also have opinion pieces at Foreign Policy this weekend, part of a flurry of opinions over the last three days which criticize both Venezuela’s call for international diplomacy in Libya and Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega’s respective friendships with Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. According to Shifter, “Chávez's belated intervention in the Libyan crisis seems likely to fall flat on the international stage -- and to carry some unexpected, unpleasant consequences for the Venezuelan leader at home. “With Chávez's proposal getting little traction,” he writes, “[Chavez] could become increasingly isolated in a region where the bulk of public opinion is in solidarity with rebel forces in Libya and with people's movements in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere.” Meanwhile, Foreign Policy’s former editor-in-chief Moises Naím echoes that opinion in Spain’s El País, saying Gadaffi’s massacre of civilians has united 192 countries of the world – “the entire world, save Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega,” who Naim labels the ‘eje de los despistados,’ or the “axis of the confused.” Ditto in today’s LA Times where the New America Foundation’s Andres Martinez adds his condemnation of Chavez for not condemning Gadaffi. He goes on, saying Chavez’s bid to mediate a peaceful solution to the Libyan crisis is a “Quixotic gambit.” And of the region as a whole, Martinez says:
“Because it is so consumed by a reactionary anti-imperial solidarity, Latin America has abdicated its responsibility to be an authoritative voice for human rights and democratic norms elsewhere in the developing world.”
For an alternative view, Greg Wilpert comments at Venezuelanalysis, seeking to explain the reasons why Chavez and others may have taken the positions they have on Libya. According to Wilpert, there’s a danger that Chavez will lose legitimacy among some of his international supporters because of his failure to condemn violence in Libya, but from a regional perspective, Chavez’s position – particularly his vocal stance against military intervention – does not seem to be particularly unique in Latin America. For example, Ecuadorean foreign minister Ricardo Patino – an official who has spent much of his time in recent years shoring up UNASUR and other regional institutions – was just as emphatic as Chavez this weekend in his opposition to international military action in Libya.
And then there is Brazil. Many praised Brazil’s decision to support UN sanctions against Libya last week, but the Inter-Press Service is the only place this week where I’ve found any information about Brazil’s firm opposition to military action in Libya and support for a “negotiated solution” to the current crisis. IPS:
“A spokesman for Brazil's Foreign Ministry summed up the central points of the Brazilian government's position for IPS: ‘The need to avoid militarising and exacerbating the situation, and the desire to find a negotiated, calm solution without foreign intervention.’”
IPS continues:
“The Latin American giant's is the first major voice of dissent against announcements by the United States -- that have the support of key European Union countries and the Arab League -- that if Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi insists on staying in power, several options for military intervention are on the table.”
Today and tomorrow, officials from Brazil, India, and South Africa will meet in New Delhi to discuss the situation in the Middle East and North Africa.
It may be time to stop portraying Hugo Chavez as the only person opposed to US military action in Libya – an option which, according to the New York Times today, the US continues to “weigh.”
To other stories:
· In just one weekend, the trial of USAID contractor Alan Gross both began and ended in Cuba. As the AP reports, a verdict is still pending, with “no indication” when that decision might come. IPS posted a good historical backgrounder to the trial while the Center for Democracy in the Americas comments in its weekly Cuba News Blast. The AP also reports, for the fourth week in a row, that a more prisoners were freed from Cuban jails this weekend. Among those released was Pedro Arguelles, a dissident serving a 20-year sentence for “treason and other charges,” and listed as “prisoner of conscience” by rights groups. Arguelles will be allowed to return to his home in central Cuba, says the AP. Seven other non-political prisoners will go into exile in Spain.
· The New York Times’ Simon Romero sat down with Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos recently and reports this weekend on changes in Santos’s Colombia – specifically, Santos’s attempt to “diversify” his international relationships. Some particularly interesting statements about Colombia’s attempt to better integrate itself with “market-friendly” countries like Peru, Chile, and Mexico – what Santos calls a way to “counterbalance Brazil.” In the LA Times this weekend, Chris Kraul looks at another element of Colombia’s new regional strategy: security training. LA Times:
“Colombia, as part of a regional counter-narcotics push, is helping train the armed forces of Mexico and 13 other Latin American and Caribbean nations, many of which receive U.S. financial assistance.”
The Washington Post had the first major report on the Colombia-Mexico aspects of such training in late January. Accompanying the LAT report is an interview with the US ambassador to Colombia, Michael McKinley in Semana this week.
· The Wilson Center has posted the video from Felipe Calderon’s only public event last week in Washington. The New York Times profiles José Antonio Zuniga, the star of the recently banned documentary “Presumed Guilty” about the failures of Mexico’s criminal justice system. BBC reports that the US Justice Dept. has asked that an inquiry begin into ATF’s “Operation Fast and Furious” program, which “funneled weapons to suspected gun smugglers in the hope of tracking the firearms to alleged drugs gang leaders in Mexico.” (The LA Times with the full story last week). Mexico has demanded that all information about the program be shared with its officials as well.
· The New York Times also reports on apparently ties between the Catholic Church and drug traffickers – or at least drug trafficking monies. In return for large, drug-money donations, some priests around the country have administered sacraments like baptism to narcos and their families, the paper says. The Times also has more on Marisol Valles, the 20-year-old chief of police who left her post in Praxedis G. Guerrero last week and is seeking asylum in the US. And the LA Times this morning on Mexico’s drug war desaparecidos – particularly the conspicuous lack of answers about why and how such disappearances have occurred.
· Amnesty International decries growing worries of femicide in Guatemala. Some 685 women were killed in 2010 in Guatemala, and AI says the country’s “culture of impunity” remains a lasting legacy of the cold war years.
· Carlos Chamorro y Carlos Salinas Maldonado, for Nicaragua’s Confidencial, have the first investigative report based on documents they “AlbaLeaks.” The investigations look at financial irregularities of Venezuela-Nicaragua economic cooperation through ALBA de Nicaragua S.A. (Albanisa), a private enterprise created by PDV Caribe de Venezuela and Petronic de Nicaragua four years ago.
· The story jumps to Costa Rica where foreign minister René Castro, in Washington last week, sought to implicate Venezuela in his country’s on-going border dispute with Nicaragua. According to Nicaragua’s La Prensa, Castro has asked both the US and the IMF to investigate Venezuelan assistance to Nicaragua, suggesting the dredging of the San Juan River is being carried out with Venezuelan funds. Speaking at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington last Thursday, Castro referred to the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border dispute as Nicaragua’s “occupation” of Costa Rica.
· Also in Nicaragua, Tim Rogers at the CS Monitor on the US position vis a vis the current political situation in Nicaragua. The article comes after a speech given last week by US Ambassador Robert Callahan to the American Chamber of Commerce – the “US-linked” business organization which the New York Times recently reported on for its ties to the Nicaraguan opposition. Greg Weeks comments on some of the parts of last week’s Callahan speech, particularly the ambassador’s take on the history US-Nicaraguan relations.
· The AP / El Faro reports that more US dollars for Central America’s fight against narcotrafficking are expected to be announced when President Obama visits El Salvador later this month.
· Al-Jazeera with an interesting piece on El Salvador’s efforts against climate change.
· The AP reports on the first presidential debate between eleven presidential hopefuls in Peru last week.
· Meanwhile, also in Peru, President Alan Garcia told El Comercio Sunday that he is considering a national “consultation” about whether or not to pardon Alberto Fujimori due to the ex-President’s failing health. The story from the AP.
· Adam Isacson talks with insightcrime.org co-founder Steven Dudley, in a new Just the Facts podcast.
· The BBC and the AP on Evo Morales’s reaction to the arrest of Gen. Rene Sanabria on drug trafficking charges last week.
· The AP reports that Brazilian Senator Rodrigo Rollenberg of the Brazilian Socialist Party has proposed that internet access be made a constitutionally guaranteed social right for Brazilians.
· And the AP also writes on the sudden death of perhaps the most recognized face of radical chavismo in Venezuela, Lina Ron. The 51 year-old, bleached-blonde militant died of a heart attack Saturday. Her death came on the same day as Alberto Granado’s passing. The 88 year-old Argentine doctor was the famous companion of Che Guevara on his 1952 motorcycle tour through South America. Granado died of natural causes in Havana. His ashes are expected to be spread between Cuba, Venezuela, and Argentina.
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