An aide to Mel Zelaya says the exiled former Honduran president plans to return home sometime within the next month. Confidant Rasel Tomé said in an interview with the AP Wednesday that Zelaya has “the will and desire to return to his homeland” after a Honduran appeals court dropped all remaining corruption charges against the former president last week. The deputy coordinator of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), Juan Barahona, says that the precise date of Zelaya’s return is still under consideration but added it’s expected to come before the June 5 General Assembly of the OAS.
The move would appear to open the door for Honduras’s return to the OAS, something for which the US has been lobbying for quite some time. “Now that the obstacles to former President Zelaya’s return to Honduras have been removed, I am confident that we will soon welcome Honduras back as a full member of the inter-American system,” remarked Sec. of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday, speaking at the 41st Conference on the Americas in Washington.
But there remain doubts about whether, in fact, the Zelaya saga, which began with the ouster of the democratically-elected leader in June 2009, is a closed book. After receiving word that charges had been dropped last week, Zelaya indicated that, should he return, he’d still be subject to intense “persecution” in his native Honduras. Today’s El Heraldo suggests that much. According to the conservative paper there’s nothing to stop Honduran prosecutors from resurrecting the corruption charges against Mel Zelaya at some point in the future.
Today’s bullet points:
· Human rights concerns in Honduras continue to extend beyond Mel Zelaya. In northern Honduras, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed a journalist outside his home in the city of Morazan Tuesday night. Reports indicate Medina, 35, was followed home by two men on a motorcycle after his evening television show. At least one of his colleagues says the murder stems from his work as a reporter – which included recent reports critical of the Honduran national police and private security firms hired by major landowners in the region. Medina’s brother adds that police forces in the area refused to escort the ambulance carrying Medina to the hospital. AP reports. Earlier in the week, Latin America News Dispatch posted an excellent, comprehensive report on the rising number of Honduran journalists killed over the past 18 months. Of the ten journalists killed during that time period (before Medina’s murder this week, which was #11), seven are said to have been known members of the Honduran Resistance. That fact makes violence against journalists in Honduras particularly unique in a region already considered to be one of the most dangerous for reporters. Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, quoted by LAND: “In other parts of Latin America where violence against the press is endemic – Mexico, for example –it’s tied to drug trafficking. In Honduras, at least as far as CPJ can determine, the violence against the press appears to have a political dimension. That’s an extremely alarming development for the entire region.”
· In neighboring El Salvador, community radio journalists at Radio Victoria in the department of Cabanas say they have received new threats from a death squad that has targeted the organization for a half-decade. The radio station has opposed mining projects in the region, and in 2009, two environmentalists connected to the station were killed. The organization currently receives police protection because of the incident, according to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Amnesty International, in a new press release, demands Salvadoran authorities increase their protection of Radio Victoria’s staff and “launch an independent, thorough and impartial investigation” into the most recent threats.
· Also in El Salvador on Tuesday, representatives of Central American governments agreed to solicit the international community for new economic and technological support, totaling just over $950 million, in an attempt to bolster a new regional anti-crime/anti-drug plan. SICA Secretary General Daniel Aleman tells AP the plan and accompanying financial request will be discussed with the European Union later next week. For his part, Salvadoran Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez highlights the new four-pronged approach to regional security based on prevention, criminal prosecution, re-insertion, and re-habilitation.
· Earlier in the week, Costa Rica and Nicaragua agreed to new bilateral cooperation against organized crime. Insight Crime and Confidencial report on the details.
· In Caracas today, Latin American energy and oil ministers are set to meet for the second of multiple planning meetings scheduled before the July summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Telesur reports, noting today’s meetings on the integration of energy networks in the region will coincide with a a meeting of Petrocaribe member states. Interestingly, it also comes on the heels of a new energy woos in the host country. Earlier this week, Venezuela’s Energy Ministry announced a new national rationing plan that will cut off power for three hours a day in 19 of the country's 23 states. The most recent blackouts have been caused by failures in transmission lines, according to the government. Critics contend the government has not done enough to invest new electricity projects. BBC reports.
· While Hugo Chavez was forced to cancel what would have been his first bilateral meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff this week because of a “wounded knee,” Venezuela’s foreign minister Nicolas Maduro did meet with his counterpart, Antonio Patriota in Brasilia. El Universal reports on the beginning of a new deal which will see increased participation of Brazilian construction firms in Venezuela’s ambitious national plan housing plan. Speaking from Venezuela, Hugo Chavez also extended an invitation to Lula da Silva to attend the July CELAC summit in Caracas.
· In Brazil, AP says the Brazilian Senate has approved a new measure that will significantly increase payments it makes to neighboring Paraguay for excess energy produced by the country’s bi-national Itaipu dam. The changes, finalized Wednesday, will increase the amount Paraguay receives annually for its share of energy sold to Brazil from $120 million to $360 million. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo says the new funds will go toward agrarian reform.
· Reporting from Brazil’s Northeast, the Washington Post examines the Brazilian government’s attempt to eradicate extreme poverty. Government officials are expected to roll-out the details of a new anti-poverty program, “Brazil Without Poverty,” in the coming weeks. The program will expand health, education and cash-transfer programs and direct increased development aid to some of the country’s most impoverished regions. Brazil’s Minister of Social Development, Tereza Campello, calls the new initiatives “strategic decisions for redistributing wealth” by “promoting big works in regions where poverty was concentrated.”
· The flipside of the “development-based” anti-poverty strategy can be seen in reporting from the New York Times today. The paper covers debates in the Brazilian Congress about whether or not to amend the country’s 1934 Forest Code so as to ease restrictions on development in parts of the country’s protected forests.
· IPS reports on new attempts by Mercosur member states Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina to curb foreign land speculation. All three are weighting measures that would impose new “limits” on how much rural property foreign companies or citizens can hold. The moves are motivated by concerns over food sovereignty. However, according to the report, none of the plans under consideration proposes to “ban land sales to private or public foreign capital, nor to regulate land use, nor to repossess land that has already been sold.”
· Latin America News Dispatch on statements Wednesday from Senate Finance Committee Chair, Max Baucus (D-MT), who says he is pushing for passage of the Colombia FTA (along with Panama and South Korea FTAs) in June. Also worth browsing through, a new policy brief prepared by Kevin Gallagher on concerns over what the signing of an FTA with the US could mean for Colombia’s ability to regulate in-flows of speculative financial capital.
· In Haiti, election officials announced Wednesday they are reversing all but four of 19 legislative races contested by the international community after results from a second-round of balloting were announced last month. Wednesday’s changes, says the AP, redistributed seats away from outgoing President Rene Preval’s INITE party and toward a number of lesser-known parties. The US Embassy still seems dissatisfied with the changes, saying the three seats which will still end up going to INITE should have gone to other candidates. New president Michel Martelly takes office Saturday.
· In Cuba, the Miami Herald reports on USAID democracy promotion programs on the island, which continue to be funded to the tune of $20 million and are the subject of on-going scrutiny and criticism in Havana.
· New poll numbers in Peru show Keiko Fujimori extending her tight lead over Ollanta Humala, 40.6% to 37.6%, according to a new Datum poll. Peru’s La Republica reports on a new anti-Fujimori human rights campaign, “Fujimori Nunca Más,” launched this week by the country’s Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDDHH). And Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl writes up a recent conversation he had with former presidential contender (and ex-president) Alejandro Toledo about round-two voting in Peru.
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