Wikileaks: Honduras AG Says He Never Issued Zelaya Warrant

In private meetings with the US Embassy shortly after the June 2009 ouster of Mel Zelaya, the chief justice of the Honduran Supreme Court, Jorge Alberto Rivera Avilés, and the country’s attorney general, Luis Alberto Rubí, claim they never issued a “request for an arrest warrant” nor an actual “arrest warrant” for the then democratically-elected Honduran president. According to diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Honduras obtained by Wikileaks and released this morning by El Faro, Rubí met with the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa in the hours immediately following the 2009 coup, telling officials there that he had only ordered the “confiscation of polling materials” and “had not asked for Zelaya’s arrest” in the days before his kidnapping and expulsion.

Shortly thereafter, however, Rubí’s story came out to the public looking significantly different. In a press conference on June 30, the attorney general praised the ouster of Zelaya for its supposed “legality” and maintained that the action had been taken after the issuance of an international arrest warrant against the president. The alleged documentation calling for the president’s arrest also went public leading one to believe the aforementioned Honduran officials were either being less than honest in his talks with the US Embassy or that the coup regime fabricated documents attempting to legitimate the coup after the fact.

In an interesting passage of one cable cited in the El Faro report, US ambassador Llorens also cites conversations he had with three prominent Honduran businessmen Antonio Travel, Emilio Larache, and Emin Barjum shortly after the coup. Similar to Rubí and Rivera Avilés, the men note the “illegal” nature of the coup but support the coup regime no less under the notion they could successfully wait things out until November elections “restored a constitutional government.”

A July 24 cable from the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa, obtained by Wikileaks and released to the public earlier this year, said there was “no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch.”

Speaking at a press conference after returning to back to Honduras this weekend, Zelaya called for a thorough investigation into his 2009 ouster.

Today’s bullet points:

· More on Honduras as the OAS prepares to vote on the readmission of Honduras to the inter-American body today. FNRP deputy coordinator Juan Barahona says the FNRP opposes the return of his country to the OAS this week, arguing the Lobo government must first prove it can comply with all the points of the Cartagena Accord before its brought back into the fold. Speaking with TeleSur, Barahona says that to allow Honduras back into the OAS this week would allow the coup d’etat of 2009 to be “left in impunity. Just as Honduras’s expulsion from the OAS came through consensus, its re-integration should so too come through consensus, says Barahona. Ecuador has said in recent days it opposes Honduras’s re-admission this week, but added it will abide by whatever decision the OAS reaches today.

· On human rights in Honduras, Human Rights Watch is calling on the Lobo government to ensure government officials stop attacking the credibility of human rights prosecutors in the country. The head of the country’s Human Rights Unit, Sandra Ponce, was the most recent target of such attacks. After opening an investigation into the deaths of seven alleged youth gang members in Ciudad Planeta, near San Pedro Sula, Deputy Secretary of Security Armando Calidonio publicly criticized Ponce and her Unit for targeting the police during their investigations. Since those statements, Ponce has received numerous threats.

· In a letter from the US House to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 87 Democratic members of Congress say the Honduran government must be more actively “pressed” by the US to end abuses by state security forces. The group also calls for the suspension of U.S. aid to the Honduran military and police until “mechanisms are in place to ensure security forces are held accountable for abuses.”

· Regarding Honduras’s political future, various suggestions this week that former first lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya could be a candidate for president in 2013. AFP reports after an interview with Castro de Zelaya. In its coverage of this weekend’s return of Zelaya, IPS says Castro de Zelaya will run. This morning Democracy Now also airs an interview with the former first lady. And finally Lisa Sullivan of the School of the Americas Watch was among those who accompanied Mel Zelaya back to Honduras Saturday. She posts a report-back from this weekend’s historic event, highlighting its regional significance.

· Colombia’s El Espectador has a good interview with Colombian foreign minister Maria Angela Holguín, the woman responsible for implementing quite significant shifts in that country’s foreign policy over the last nine months. TeleSur, meanwhile, interviews the woman who preceded Holguín, current UNASUR Secretary General Maria Emma Mejía, about regional integration.

· Ahead of elections in Peru, journalist Gustavo Gorriti of IDL-Reporteros speaks with WOLA’s Adam Isacson about Sunday’s vote and why much of the country’s intelligentsia has opted for Ollanta Humala. Jo-Marie Burt and Coletta Youngers, meanwhile, offer a closer looker at Keiko Fujimori and legacies of Fujimorismo. And Ollanta Humala sits down for an interview with TeleSur.

· As an autopsy gets underway to determine the definitive cause of death of former Chilean president Salvador Allende, a file from a military court’s investigation into Allende’s death suggests the former leader “may have been shot from a small firearm before he shot himself with a machine gun from under his chin.” The New York Times and AP report in English; Chile’s CIPER with the longer story in Spanish. AP also reports on new calls that the death of Chilean poet and longtime Communist Party activist Pablo Neruda be investigated. Neruda died on 23 September 1973, less than two weeks after the coup against the Allende government. The cause of death was then said to have been prostate cancer.

· The body of a possible witness to the killing of two land reform activists in the Brazilian Amazon was found Sunday just one day before the Brazilian government said it will increase policing in the Amazon rain forest in an effort to stem such attacks. The group Catholic Land Pastoral says more than 1,150 rural activists have been killed in Brazil over the past 20 years.

· AP and BBC on a brief visit to Bolivia Tuesday by Iranian defense minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi. Vahidi is wanted by Argentina for allegedly helping to organize the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994 which killed 85 people. Vahidi was in Bolivia for the inauguration of a defense academy for ALBA member states. Late Tuesday, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca wrote a letter to Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman saying that Vahidi had left the country at the request of the Bolivian government.

· Reuters says four Cuban men who threw anti-government leaflets in Havana's Revolution Square were sentenced Tuesday to up to five years in prison by a Cuban court. Elizardo Sanchez of the independent Cuban Commission of Human Rights has asked Amnesty International to put the men on the group’s list of “prisoners of conscience.”

· The International Crisis Group has a new report assessing the work of Guatemala’s UN-backed anti-impunity commission, CICIG.

· And the LA Times notes the passing of longtime Guatemalan human rights advocate Ricardo Stein. The Times calls Stein one of the “key architects” of the 1996 Guatemalan peace accords. In neighboring El Salvador during the 1980s, he helped create the Center for Information, Documentation and Support for Research at the Jesuit-run University of Central America. From 1998 to 2006 he directed the Soros Foundation Guatemala. Stein was 62.

Anti-Drug War March Concludes in Mexico City

Tens of thousands amassed in Mexico City’s Zócalo Sunday, the capstone to a four-day anti-drug war march that began in the city of Cuernavaca on Thursday. Much of the reporting over the weekend has focused on the man responsible for organizing the Mexico City march, Javier Sicilia. Sicilia’s son was killed in Cuernavaca less than two months ago – one of nearly 40,000 killed since late 2006 – and since then the poet and journalist has dedicated himself to organizing one of the largest demonstrations to date demanding an end to the country’s militarized drug wars. Mexico analyst and UNAM professor John Ackerman, himself a vocal supporter of this weekend’s demonstrations, is quoted in the Washington Post Sunday describing Sicilia’s organizing success as stemming from his capacity to unite a broad front – the upper class who are worried about security, the political left, the progressive wing of the Catholic church, trade unionists, and everyone in the middle who is, in Ackerman’s words, “just frustrated with the current state of affairs.”

Interestingly, the EZLN responded to Sicilia’s call for parallel demonstrations to be held in other cities around the country, organizing what looks to have been the largest simultaneous march in San Cristóbal de las Casas. As many as 20,000 people are said to have participated in that march – what the BBC suggests could be the beginning of a new Zapatista campaign.

In the Zócalo Sunday, Sicilia began to articulate the message of an anti-war coalition. He demanded the resignation of Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s director of public security. Proceso, which has excellent reporting on the entire march this week, highlights the movement’s demand for a new “social pact” (the details of which can be found here) and the nomination of a “citizen candidate,” unaffiliated with any of Mexico’s three major parties, for 2012 presidential elections. (Sicilia denies personal interest in the position). Proceso reprints Sicilia’s speech in the Zócalo Sunday, underscoring the call for some sort of electoral boycott should the movement’s demands go unmet.

Beyond Sicilia, independent journalist Kristin Bricker has excellent English-language reporting before and during the four-day march on other participants. La Jornada has coverage of the march in Spanish. And MexicoReporter.com has a video report, speaking with demonstrators as they entered Mexico City Sunday.

Bullet points from the last week:

· While results have not been made official yet, Rafael Correa has declared victory in the 10-question referendum vote held over the weekend. According to BBC, exit polls show the measures passing by somewhere between 51% and 57%. Just the Facts posts the eclectic 10 questions (with commentary) which were presented to voters Saturday. Reuters focuses on powers that will be granted to Correa’s to reorganize the country’s judiciary. Among other things, the New York Times looks at complaints from media groups about a few of the referendum questions.

· In Honduras, the Supreme Court ruled last week that it will dismiss all remaining charges of corruption against former President Manuel Zelaya. On Friday, the country’s public prosecutor Luis Rubí said he would not appeal that decision, although, as Honduras Culture and Politics notes, there remains some uncertainty about whether corruption charges could be re-filed at some future date. Last week’s decisions seem to open the door for Zelaya’s return to Honduras, although in a letter to supporters released Thursday, he said “persecution” would continue if he did so.

· AP and Reuters report that the Cuban Communist Party will begin public dissemination today of the economic reforms approved at the PCC Congress last month. Copies of the document will go on sale for one peso while an extended version explaining the new guidelines will cost Cubans two pesos. More on Cuba’s reforms from José Manuel Prieto in a long essay in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books. Also, a new report from the New America Foundation’s US-Cuba Policy Initiative on economic reforms. Excerpts at the Havana Note.

· Continuing in Cuba, AP reports on the death of dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto in the central city of Santa Clara over the weekend. Fellow dissident Guillermo Farinas says Soto was detained and beaten by state security forces during a weekend demonstration and blames security forces for the death. Unconfirmed reports from doctors say Soto died of pancreatitis.

· New poll numbers show Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori now in a statistical dead-heat just one month before second-round balloting in Peru. A Catholic University Poll released Saturday shows Humala polling at 40.7% with Fujimori close behind at 40.5%. An Ipsos-Apoyo poll released Sunday places Fujimori in first, at 43.8% with Humala close-behind at 42.3%. Meanwhile, reluctant Humala-backer Mario Vargas Llosa has gone all-in against Keiko Fujimori. In his Sunday column in El Comercio, the Nobel Prize-winning author accused the government of Alan Garcia of ordering the country’s state intelligence services to sabotage the campaign of Ollanta Humala. AP reports on the accusations.

· Latin America News Dispatch reports on Brazil’s decision last week to break off relations with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) after the regional body demanded Brazil halt construction of the $17 billion Belo Monte dam. In a 52-page response from the Brazilian foreign ministry, issued in late April, Brazil said it would continue with the project. Moreover, President Dilma Rousseff last week ordered Brazil’s envoy to the OAS, Ruy Casaes, to remain in Brasilia indefinitely.

· The Miami Herald reports on Arturo Valenzuela’s announcement last week that he will soon be stepping down from his position as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Valenzuela will return to teaching at Georgetown University.

· IPS reports on next steps being taken by Bolivia at the UN to legalize the coca leaf.

· The CS Monitor reports on Brazil’s extension of civil union rights to gay and lesbian couples.

· The New York Times looks at the return of crime, corruption, and congestion to Bogotá.

· Miami Herald reports on Southcom chief, Gen. Douglas Fraser’s comments last week that organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America represent the region’s greatest security threats.

· In other commentary, Dana Frank writes in The Nation about recent teacher demonstrations in Honduras; World Politics Review talks with CEPR’s Alex Main about the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC; and Ruben Martinez, in the LA Times today, on the need for US solidarity with Mexicans seeking to bring the drug wars to an end.

· Finally, the New York Times on the deaths of two major figures from Latin America’s cold war past. René Emilio Ponce, a Salvadoran military leader accused of ordering the murder of six Jesuit priests in 1989, died last Monday at a military hospital in San Salvador. He was 64. And in Argentina, novelist Ernesto Sábato, the man who led the commission that investigated crimes committed by the nation’s military dictatorship and produced the commission’s famous “Nunca Más” report, died Saturday at his home Buenos Aires. He was 99.

For Now, Cuba to Carry On with the "Historicos"

The Cuban Communist Party opted for political “experience” over rejuvenation, announcing Tuesday that 80-year-old histórico and former Sierra Maestra rebel, José Ramón Machado, was selected as the Party’s new second-in-command. Machado takes over the position from 79-year-old Cuban President Raúl Castro, who, as expected, officially replaced his brother, Fidel, as the Party’s first secretary. (For his part, the elder Castro, donning his traditional track suit, made a surprise appearance at the Congress’s closing session).

Cuba expert Arturo Lopez-Levy tells the Times that Machado’s selection was likely based on his knowledge of the inner workings of the party and his past experience heading an office in charged with approving promotions and developing ties with party leaders across the island.

There was a bit of relative youth added to PCC’s central committee and its 15-member Politburo. As the New York Times reports, the latter will now include three youngsters – that is, individuals under the age of 60 – among them, new economic reform czar Marino Murillo, Havana Communist Party chief Mercedes Lopez Acea, and Economy Minister Adel Izquierdo Rodriguez.

Absent from Tuesday’s closing session were any further details about how and when the economic reforms (Lineamientos), approved by the Congress this weekend, would be applied. Phil Peters has more details at The Cuban Triangle. His conclusions:

“The Congress reaffirmed the commitment to economic reform; proposed a mechanism to push the reforms through the bureaucracy; signaled that reforms will proceed deliberately but not on an emergency basis; stated that the Party needs to butt out of day-to-day government and business affairs at all levels; and passed up the opportunity to make big personnel moves, including those that would send signals about next-generation leaders.”

Today’s bullet points:

· In Honduras, the country’s Appeals Court is expected to announce shortly whether or not it will drop pending corruption charges against former President Mel Zelaya, ousted in a 2009 coup d’etat. The decision would open the door for Zelaya’s return to the country, and potentially, Honduras’s eventual re-integration within the OAS. Members of the FNRP met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez over the weekend to discuss their criteria for supporting such re-incorporation into the inter-American system. The meeting followed an earlier one between Chavez, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, and Honduran President Pepe Lobo about the same topic. Juan Barahona, sub-coordinator of the FNRP, says the Resistance has four demands that must be met before it will support the move: the return to Honduras of Zelaya and all other individuals exiled by the coup; respect for human rights; the convening of a Constituent Assembly; and, now, the recognition of the FNRP, by the government, as a legitimate political force that can participate in future elections.

· A second US free trade agreement with a Latin American country – this time Panama—appears to be moving forward. The New York Times reports that the two countries agreed Monday to exchange tax information, ending US worries about Panama becoming a haven for income-tax evaders. Not coincidentally, the White House announced yesterday that Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli will be traveling to Washington next week (April 28) for his first face-to-face meeting with President Obama.

· Also in the US this week is unofficial Haitian president-elect Michel Martelly. Among those with whom he is meeting are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Official results in Haiti’s presidential race are expected to be finally announced sometime today. More from AQ.

· The Wall Street Journal and Mercopress have more on the growing differences about international economic policy between Global South powers – particularly Brazil – and the Global North – namely the US. As discussed earlier, the central issue of dispute at this week’s IMF meetings was whether or not extremely low interest rates in the US are behind speculative capital outflows toward the developing world. Brazil says so-called ‘hot money’ is behind inflation worries. Despite statements to the contrary by Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega, the Financial Times contends that such worries continue to rise in Brazil. New March unemployment numbers released this week show unemployment there to be at a record low of 6.5%, and some economists argue that is fueling rising demand and thus rising prices. Brazil’s Central Bank plans to raise interest rates by 25 to 50% today in its latest attempt to hold back new lending.

· While worries about inflation are not as significant in Chile – at least yet – Dow Jones says that country’s Central Bank suggested the idea of capital controls should be studied in advance, just in case, despite repeated statements by President Sebastian Pinera that the country opposes such measures.

· On the relationship between economic numbers and politics, Reuters looks at the impact $100+ oil will have on an upcoming election season in Venezuela.

· Insight looks at Juan Manuel Santos’s qualification this week of earlier statements about the FARC and Venezuela.

· The Miami Herald examines what may be the newest drug trafficking thoroughfare – the Dominican Republic. According to the paper, more than 5000 officials from the police and military have been fired in the last year alone for suspected ties to traffickers moving drugs through the island from Colombia and on to the US and Europe. Miami attorney Joaquin Perez, who represents a number of alleged traffickers tells the paper: “There is no question that most of the heavy lifting in drug trafficking in the Dominican Republic is being done by the military: They are the ones who facilitate the entry of drugs. They get a commission, in the form of drugs, and then find someone to sell it.”

· AFP reports on the opening of a new regional counter-narcotics and security operations center in Panama, to be administered by Central American Integration System (SICA).

· BBC Mundo says Bolivia has accepted $250,000 from the US for coca eradication. The new funds come just weeks after the US arrested former Bolivian drug czar General Rene Sanabria in Panama for his alleged participation in cocaine trafficking.

· The LA Times reflects on the Bay of Pigs debacle, fifty years after.

· And the Real News with a long video report on teacher protests of recent weeks in Honduras.

Making First-Time Homeowners in Cuba?

News about some of the reforms approved at Cuba’s Sixth Party Congress in Havana has begun to trickle out. Most notably, BBC says the PCC has approved a new measure that would allow Cubans to buy and sell their homes for the first time in 50 years.

Also allegedly approved Monday: a measure announced by Raúl Castro over the weekend that will, for the first time, set term limits for high ranking Cuban politicians. The move is seen as an attempt to “rejuvenate” the Cuban government’s aging leadership.

Details about the approved reforms, apparently totaling around 300 in all, are expected to be announced later today during the Congress’s closing session. The results of an internal vote held yesterday to determine the Party’s new first and second secretaries are also expected to be released.

The New York Times this morning tries to get a sense of how Cubans are reacting to some of the early signals coming out of the PCC Congress. The paper says most on the island remain ambivalent – if not skeptical – about the changes, but the Times suggests the major issue to watch will be who the “new generation” brought into top party positions are. A number of names have been floated, among them 50-year-old Marino Murillo, the country’s former economy minister-turned-reform czar in charge of implementing plans to channel Cubans into the private enterprise; Lázaro Expósito, the head of PCC in Santiago de Cuba, and 47-year-old Lázara López Acea, the party’s leader in the capital of Havana.

More analysis in the coming days at the Havana Note and The Cuban Triangle.

Today’s bullet points:

· BBC Mundo reports that nearly two weeks of strikes by teachers and healthcare workers have drawn to a close in Bolivia after the government and the country’s principal trade union federation (COB) agreed to an 11% salary increase on Monday. The strikes of the were the longest of the Morales presidency but as a new study from the Observatorio de Análisis de Conflictos Sociales (CERES) shows, that was about all that made them unique. As the CERES study indicates, there has been an average of one “social conflict” per day in Bolivia over the last four years. That is, between 1970 and 2010, CERES has documented a grand total of 13.897 conflicts, ranging from strikes to street protests to occupations and roadblocks. More on Bolivia and what The Guardian calls its radical development model based on equality and environmental sustainability, at the paper’s Poverty Matters blog.

· Peruvian presidential contender Ollanta Humala has received the backing of two of Peru’s most notable economists. Kurt Burneo, the former president of state-run Banco de la Nacion and Oscar Dancourt, the former president of Peru's central bank, both joined Humala’s campaign team as economic advisers on Monday. Both men had previously been close to former President Alejandro Toledo. Reuters reports.

· At Just the Facts, Adam Isacson highlights interesting comparative statistics on the number of police/military deaths in Mexico from Dec. 2006 to the present vs. the number of police/military deaths in Colombia from January 2007 to March 2011. In Mexico, the number killed during that period stands at 398 while in Colombia, the figures continue to be significantly higher, at 1,901.

· Following up on yesterday’s post on economic matters, Mercopress reports on a new World Bank report, “Latin America and the Caribbean’s Success Put to the Test,” (press release here and report here), discussing some of the region’s coming economic challenges.

· At Foreign Policy in Focus, Sebastian Castaneda looks at imbalances in the China-South America economic relationship – in comparison with the evolution of the United States’ economic position in the region.

· Former GW Bush international economic adviser Daniel Price writes in the Washington Post that the Obama administration should continue its “pro-trade” agenda, reanimated by its push for a Colombia FTA, by recommitting itself to global trade talks through the WTO.

· The human rights group, Rights Action, has a brief critical of newly nominated US ambassador to Honduras, Lisa Kubiske, suggesting potentially close ties between the nominee – currently serving as the Deputy Chief of Affairs in Brazil – and the biofuel industry.

· CFR’s Shannon O’Neil highlights a $1 billion fine handed out to Carlos Slim’s telecom monopoly Telcel by Mexico’s Federal Competition Commission last week. The fine was the largest ever issued by the agency and, according to O’Neil, it suggests the Calderón government may still be interested in making good on his trust-busting campaign promise of five years ago.

· And the Wilson Center has posted the full remarks of Dr. Denise Dresser at a talk she gave in Washington last week entitled “What’s the Matter with Mexico: Drugs, Dinosaurs, and Dithering.”

US-Colombia FTA Moving Forward, Opposition Remains

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be passing through Washington DC today to join President Barack Obama in formally announcing White House support for a US-Colombia free trade agreement. The creation of a so-called “Action Plan” in which Colombia promises to expand protections of trade unionists, enforce its labor laws with greater vigor, and hire as many as 480 new labor inspectors over the next four years is being hailed as the final deal maker, according to US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

The New York Times notes that neither Kirk nor White House international economic affairs adviser, Michael Froman, would yet offer a timeline for when an actual vote on the Colombian FTA would take place in the US Congress. Some congressional Republicans see a similar deal with Panama as complimentary and may press the Obama administration to move on both deals before an actual vote is taken. The Wall Street Journal this morning quotes Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the House chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who says he wants the Colombia pact to be considered along with similar EU and South Korea deals by July1. There are also, of course, domestic policy concerns this week as the Republican Congress threatens to shut down the federal government over the president’s federal budget proposal.

Thus far it seems few, if any, groups or individuals opposed to the Colombia FTA because of labor and human rights concerns have been won over by the new “action plan.” A group of six House Democrats, led by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA), released a statement Thursday which acknowledges this is the “first time any trade agreement has taken labor rights so seriously.” But the House members say pushing the FTA through without first verifying if, how, and when violence against trade unionists declines runs counter to the spirit of the action plan:

“When so many lives are at stake, we do not believe this is a matter to be rushed to Congress until we are able to determine, including through consultation with the targets of violence and human rights violations in Colombia, whether genuine and lasting change has taken place on the ground – not just on paper, but in the reality that so adversely affects so many Colombians every single day.”

The group again directs attention back to its March 17 letter and recommendations to the President, available here and here.

Congressman Sandy Levin (D-MI), Ranking Member on the House Ways and Means Committee, expressed similar concerns Wednesday. “The Administration has achieved in its discussions with the Colombia government a number of important commitments to address serious issues regarding worker rights, violence and impunity, but more work needs to be done,” the congressman says.

The AFL-CIO, which has stayed noticeably quiet about another FTA with South Korea (the UAW has actually supported that deal), also continues to oppose the Colombia agreement, despite the Wednesday’s new labor protection proposals. “We understand that the proposed Action Plan lays out some important benchmarks in terms of increasing the level of protection for workers, addressing some flaws in the labor code, and improving enforcement of labor laws,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says. But, Trumka continues:

“There is no guarantee that the terms of it will in fact lead to a reduction in violence, and no backup plan to delay implementation if the violence and impunity continue. The Action Plan is a stand-alone agreement, not connected to the benefits conferred in the trade agreement. Once the trade agreement is ratified by Congress and implemented, the U.S. government will have no leverage whatsoever to enforce its terms in the event that the terms are not implemented as agreed.”

In the past 25 years, more than 2,850 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia. Last year, 51 trade unionists were killed in Colombia – an increase from just one year prior. Six trade unionists have been murdered so far this year, including two in just the last week. Some have noted that, should the Colombia FTA be approved, Colombia’s future, in terms of violence against labor activists, could parallel that of Guatemala. There trade union murders were brought down to zero before the passage of CAFTA in 2006 but shot back up in the years which followed. In fact, the Inter-Press Service had a good piece on the Guatemala labor situation under CAFTA yesterday, which, is worth reading next to IPS’s report report today on Colombia.

For the pro-Colombia FTA position, see Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) in the Wall Street Journal earlier in the week as well as today’s Washington Post.

Today’s bullet points:

· Juan Manuel Santos deflated speculation that he might have been reconsidering his decision to send Venezuelan drug kingpin Walid Makled back to his native Venezuela. In an interview with Univision, Santos says his position has not changed. Walid Makled will be extradited to Venezuela, despite the frustration of some in the US.

· News about the advance of a US-Colombia FTA comes on the same day the Mexican Senate also ratified an expanded free trade pact with Colombia. The two countries originally signed an FTA in 1996, which, at the time, also included Venezuela (Venezuela withdrew in 2006). EFE reports: The agreement will open up the Mexican market for Colombian crackers, citric acid, sodium and calcium citrate, palm oil, pork rinds for microwave ovens and cigarettes, among other products.” The deal, however, continues to limit the entry of Colombian dairy products and coffee into the Mexican market and prohibits exports of Colombian beef to Mexico. News also this morning that a deal integrating the stock exchanges of Colombia, Peru, and Chile will go into effect on May 30. Shannon O’Neil at CFR comments on that, as well as a separate FTA expected to be signed between the three countries, plus Mexico, on May 2, and compares to the ALBA bloc.

· In Brazil, AFP reports that agricultural interests are demanding the government expand the country’s “agricultural frontier” by revising the country’s 1965 forestry law. Environmental groups are opposing the measure.

· In Mexico, the LA Times highlights a series of anti-crime marches which took place in cities around the country Wednesday. TIME, meanwhile, explores the proposal of poet Javier Sicilia, one of the demonstrations’ organizers: that a pact be made between the government and Mexican cartels to try to put an end to out-of-control violence. Mexican historian Lorenzo Meyer tells the magazine such a discussion is long-overdue. UNAM’s John Ackerman, meanwhile, says Mexicans have stopped buying the government’s line that “things have to get worse before they get better.” This as Mexican investigators discovered a new mass grave in Tamaulipas Thursday, filled with at least 59 bodies. The grave was found just a short distance from the ranch were 72 migrants were massacred last summer. Authorities were in the area investigating other very troubling reports of individuals being dragged off buses and abducted by gunmen. AP reports.

· Outgoing Haitian president Rene Preval was at the UN Wednesday, criticizing the Security Council for dragging its heels in transforming the MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission into a development mission. Seen as detached and absent in Haiti for much of the last year, Preval seems to have finally found his voice, challenging the UNSC to consider the effectiveness of its interventions that “have practically led to 11 years of military presence in a country that has no war.” Edmund Mulet, head of the UN mission in Haiti tells the AP he is in agreement. “We all agree with Preval. This is what we all want. This is what we all need — for the peacekeeping mission to leave Haiti.” But Mulet says his timeline for departure is somewhere around 2015. CEPR points out that South America, through UNASUR and the South American Defense Council, may be pushing for the mission to end more rapidly.

· The Carter Center has posted Jimmy Carter’s Cuba trip report. Geoff Thale at WOLA comments on the trip, as well as an announcement by DOS just two days after Carter’s return that it, through USAID, will continue to support – to the tune of $20 million – controversial “human rights and civil society programs” on the island. “It is these very “regime change” programs,” says Thale, “that landed U.S. citizen Alan Gross in jail well over a year ago.”

· Portugal looks like it will not take Brazil’s advice, announcing today that it will accept an almost $129 billion bailout from the IMF and EU. The Wall Street Journal reports.

· In Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is reassigning some 1200 federal police officers to Buenos Aires amid rising complaints of crime insecurity in the capital. In Bolivia, Evo Morales has authorized the Bolivian military to operate along the border in an attempt to combat “illicit” activities, including narco-trafficking. In Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, meanwhile, has put his military in charge of a new anti-mosquito campaign intended to stem growing concerns about dengue.

· Reuters reports on major clashes between campesinos and security forces at Southern Copper’s Tia Maria mine in Peru this week. The campesinos involved say they will boycott the presidential election if the mining project there is not brought to a halt.

· And finally Jo-Marie Burt and Coletta Youngers at Foreign Policy in Focus on Peru’s elections this Sunday, specifically Ollanta Humala’s rise. Also worth reading, a recent interview with CIDDH director, Ricardo Soberón, who, on a personal basis, has been advising the Humala campaign on drug policy.

Carter Demands US End Embargo, Travel Ban

Former President Jimmy Carter’s three-day visit to Havana came to an end Wednesday with a rather historic news conference. The BBC reports, highlighting former President Carter’s unequivocal denunciation of both the US travel ban on Cuba and the US trade embargo on the island. The latter, Carter said, should be “immediately ended.” He also attacked the US government’s decision to keep the island on the “state sponsors of terrorism” list, calling that policy “unfounded” and in need of revision. To that end, there are reports that Carter even met with diplomats from Spain and Colombia who both welcomed Cuba’s policy of accepting FARC and ETA members as part of an effort toward peace and reconciliation in their countries.

Also very notable, Carter called for the release of the Cuban Five, a group of Cuban intelligence agents who have been jailed in the US for over twelve years after infiltrating anti-Castro groups in South Florida.

I’ll direct readers to Peter Kornbluh’s excellent coverage of the Carter visit and press conference at The Nation for all the details. But it’s worth highlighting here the quite amazing number and diversity of meetings Carter held during his three days in Havana. After a six-hour meeting and dinner with Raul Castro on Tuesday, the list of individuals Carter met with Wednesday included dissident bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Reinaldo Escobar, and Claudia Cadelo; Cuban rights activist Elizardo Sanchez; Catholic activists Dagoberto Valdes and Oswaldo Paya; various members of the Ladies in White; a dozen recently released members of the “Group of 75” who have been allowed to remain in Cuba, the apparently retired Fidel Castro, two mothers and three wives of the Cuban Five, as well as imprisoned USAID contractor, Alan Gross.

On Monday Carter also talked with Jewish and Catholic religious leaders in Cuba, including Cardinal Jaime Ortega who successfully negotiated the release of many of the “Group of 75” dissidents over the past six months.

It’s the Gross issue which has drawn most American press coverage in recent days, and, as Carter indicated upon his arrival in Havana, he was not on the island – at least this time – to secure Gross’s release. But as he spoke Wednesday, Carter remarked there were various “confidential matters” he would be discussing with President Obama when he returned home.

After accompanying Carter and his entourage to the airport Wednesday, Raul Castro expressed notable optimism as well, offering a few brief comments on the Carter trip. “[Carter] is helping something that's humanely just – to advance the solutions to common problems,” said Castro. “I think this was a good visit. He met with whomever he wished, declared – as you saw – whatever he wished. Now, you be the judge.”

More coverage from IPS and the Havana Note, which notes that, despite the former president’s meetings with members of nearly every major dissident group on the island, anti-Castro hardliners (also here) in Washington could not, unsurprisingly, be satisfied.

Today’s bullet points:

· From the AP wire in Guatemala, news this morning that the man considered to be the country’s top drug trafficker, Juan Ortiz Lopez, was detained in a joint US – Guatemala operation. Guatemalan Interior Minister Carlos Menocal says Ortiz was arrested at a house in the western city of Quetzaltenango with two other individuals after being surveilled by DEA and Guatemalan intelligence agents for nearly a week. US Attorney Robert O’Neill unsealed a U.S. federal indictment against Ortize in Florida Wednesday which charges Ortiz with two counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. No word yet about possible extradition plans.

· In Colombia, the case of top Venezuelan capo Walid Makled is back in the news after Colombia’s attorney general, Luisa Ortega announced this week that Makled should be sent to Venezuela rather than the US. According to AP, Ortega said that last Friday the Colombian Supreme Court cleared the way for Makled’s extradition to his native Venezuela to face narcotics trafficking and murder charges. That has some in the US, namely US congressman Connie Mack (R-FL), once again quite upset. In a letter to Juan Manuel Santos this week, Mack suggests he knows Colombia’s interest better than Colombia does:

“Security of your nation is paramount to many in Congress, and despite the Obama Administration’s signals to the contrary, the threat of Hugo Chavez is taken seriously by many American lawmakers.”

More on the Makled case and Connie Mack in an earlier Brief here, as well as the CS Monitor this week.

· More drug talk. Wired Magazine with a long look at Colombia’s “jungle-built, Kevlar-coated” drug subs. McClatchy says 60% of Mexicans think the drug cartels are winning the drug wars in their country. EFE reports on a new Wikileaked diplomatic cable about US worries over high-powered weapons entering Mexico from Central America. The Guardian on an experiment in Bolivia to turn illegal coca harvests into an organic fertilizer:

“Every year Bolivia confiscates almost 700 tonnes of illegal coca from drug traffickers. The government's coca director, Luis Cutipa, believes that turning this excess into fertiliser will deprive criminals of their raw material for making cocaine, much of which goes to Brazil and on to Europe. He is optimistic that compost made from coca can be made on an industrial scale.”

And from the BBC, a look at how Brazil is quickly displacing the US as Bolivia’s new counter-narcotics partner. The two countries signed a new anti-drug cooperation agreement this week which will replace the “void” left after the US Drug Enforcement Administration was expelled from Bolivia in 2008. The so-called “Brazil-Bolivia Action Plan” agreed to this week builds on prior cooperation agreements between the two countries and includes new initiatives for Brazil to train Bolivian security forces, as well as the deployment of Brazilian drones to patrol the Brazil-Bolivia border. There’s also talk, says the BBC, of expanding the agreement to include Peru.

· Another new presidential poll in Peru (IMA) shows Alejandro Toledo back in the number one slot ahead of April 10 elections with 23.9%. He’s followed closely by Ollanta Humala with 21.9%. The IMA poll then has Keiko Fujimori falling to third (17.6%), Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in fourth (16.9%), and Luis Castaneda in fifth (13.8%). Interestingly, most polls show the fifth-place candidate, Castaneda, doing the best in nearly every possible second-round match-up – a fact which led the former Lima mayor to make the bizarre request this week that his three more conservative competitors (Toledo, Fujimori, and PPK) step down and back his candidacy against Ollanta Humala. The story from La Republica.

· In Chile, the AP reports on a new, $15 million lawsuit that has been filed against the Chilean government by the daughters of assassinated army chief, Carlos Prats. The suit targets former Pinochet intelligence chief, Manuel Contreras, and other high ranking pinochetistas. Chile's Supreme Court last year sentenced Contreras to 20 years in prison for the assassination of Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires in 1974.

· In Mexico, senators from the PAN and PRD (as well as many members of Duarte’s own PRI, it seems) have rejected a proposal by Chihuahua governor Cesar Duarte that would have made three years of military service obligatory for Mexican youth. La Jornada reports.

· The AP writes on the death of Lula da Silva’s VP, José Alencar. Mercopress also with an interesting report on the late paulistano industrialist who is credited with easing business and investor worries about a trade union president.

· Mercopress also has the details of stop-two on Hugo Chavez’s regional tour: Uruguay. The two countries signed new energy agreements Wednesday but the focus of the reporting has been international – namely the war in Libya – an intervention which both presidents, each in his own way, again rejected in a joint press conference in Montevideo. Those words came amidst another somewhat bizarre announcement: that former Nicaraguan foreign minister and one-time UN General Assembly president, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, will now be representing Libya at the UN. D’Escoto was born in Los Angeles, although does not hold US citizenship apparently, and is currently in New York on a “tourist visa.” US UN ambassador Susan Rice said Wednesday d’Escoto must leave the country and re-enter on a diplomatic visa before he can take up his new post. Rice threatened D’Escoto with expulsion if he “acts like a representative of a foreign government on a tourist visa.” D’Escoto is apparently planning to hold a press conference at the UN today. He did an interview with Telesur yesterday, discussing his new gig.

· And finally, also on wars and the absurd, US congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) penned a provocative piece in the Houston Chronicle yesterday. The headline: “Let's make a commitment to war on Mexican cartels.” His suggestion: “I believe we should explore a joint military and intelligence operation with Mexico, similar to the 1999 Plan Colombia. This plan aimed to destroy that country's cocaine trade, eradicate its cartels and restore its economic and national security, and we certainly saw results.” As a follow-up, McCaul will be chairing a hearing today entitled “The U.S. Homeland Security Role in the Mexican War Against Drug Cartels.” He spent his day Wednesday introducing new legislation that would classify six Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” More at the Houston Chronicle.