Mexico Lawmakers Debate Controversial Internal Security Measures

Note to Readers: I’ll be off from tomorrow April 29 through the end of next week. There may or may not be some intermittent posting from others during that time. I'll see you back on Monday May 9. JFS

AP reports this morning that the Mexican Senate has approved a constitutional reform measure that would both allow federal legislators to seek re-election and allow candidates at any level to pursue public office without the backing of a political party. The reforms passed in a 95-8 vote Wednesday (with eight abstentions), and now goes to Mexico’s lower house for consideration. If approver there it will continue on to Mexico’s 31 state legislatures where it must be approved by simple majority (16) before finally arriving on President Felipe Calderon’s desk.

According to supporters, the measure will increase accountability – the idea being that if one must face re-election he/she will somehow feel more beholden to the will of the voters.

Meanwhile, a second and perhaps even more controversial measure is currently being debated in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies. The Latin America News Dispatch reports that the lower house has less than one week to decide whether or not it will alter the country’s National Security Law, granting the Mexico’s president the power to deploy Mexico’s Armed Forces against a new list of broadly defined “internal threats.” The Senate has already approved the measure, but the Mexican Left remains strongly opposed to the measure – originally submitted by President Felipe Calderon back in April 2009 – saying it would allow the military to conduct surveillance of private citizens in order to gather intelligence and increase the military’s role in security operations. Moreover, PT deputy Jaime Cardenas argues there are no stipulations in the current 83 page initiative about whether or not military abuses would be tried in civilian or military courts. “Here we are creating a fourth power,” Cardenas said. “Technically, this decree constitutes a coup.” More from CIP’s Americas Program.

Mexico analyst John Ackerman seems to concur with that assessment. In a damning opinion in Proceso (and reprinted elsewhere), Ackerman says the measure “seeks to open the door to creation of a military government” in Mexico. “Instead of listening to the popular demand of ‘No blood,’ starting to remove the Armed Forces from the streets and establish transparency and monitoring through civil courts, Felipe Calderon is determined to normalize and broaden the new role of the military in the directly controlling the country.” Most dangerous of all, Ackerman contends, is an article in the bill which would allow the military to be used against any “action related movements or conflicts of a political, electoral, or social nature” when those movements constitute a “challenge” or “threat” to the security of the country, as defined by the president.

The debate over the measure comes just days before what could be the largest mass mobilization ever against Calderon’s prosecution of the drug wars. Narco News has more on those demonstrations which will begin May 5 in Cuernavaca and end May 8 in Mexico City’s zocalo. Among the broad front of organizers leading those efforts are poet and journalist Javier Sicilia, the ex-president of the Mexico City Human Rights Commission Emilio Álvarez Icaza, priest and immigrant rights defender Alejandro Solalinde, president of Causa Común María Elena Morera, Chihuahua Mormon Julián LeBarón, and ex-president of Mexico United Against Crime Eduardo Gallo.

Today’s bullet points:

· In Mexico’s northern state of Durango, AP says the number of corpses found at two mass grave sites soared yesterday to 104. In the Tamaulipas city of San Fernando the number of bodies recovered stands at 183, meaning that this month alone the bodies of at least 287 individuals have been found in what are now considered to be the two largest mass grave sites found in Mexico to date.

· Also in Mexico this week was Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. Lobo met privately with a group of Mexican businessmen whom he is courting to invest Honduras. Among those involved in the meeting were the head of America Movil, Daniel Hagg; Carlos Peralta, of Grupo IUSA; Alonso Quintana of ICA and the director of the state-run Federal Electricity Commission, Antonio Vivanco, says EFE. Next week Lobo will host the “Honduran Is Open for Business” forum – an attempt to attract new foreign investment and will include the participation of, among other individuals, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.

· In Costa Rica, former President and ex-Secretary General of the OAS Miguel Angel Rodriguez was sentenced to five years in prison Wednesday after being found guilty of corruption. According to AP, Rodriguez and other former government officials took bribes in exchange for giving the Latin American branch of the French telecom company Alcatel a $149 million cell phone contract with the Costa Rican Electricity Institute. Seven other individuals from Rodriguez’s government have been charged in the case as well and were sentenced to between five and 20 years in prison. An appeals process is expected to begin shortly.

· In neighboring Panama, AP looks at a constitutional reform push by President Ricardo Martinelli which officially under way this week. Martinelli appointed a commission of legal experts tasked with drafting a set of reforms early in the week. Martinelli says the objective is to make Panama’s constitution “an example in Latin America.” His political opposition, among them the Frente Nacional por los Derechos Económicos y Sociales, seems to disagree.

· In Venezuela’s El Universal, an interesting interview with Sara Carolina Diaz, Secretary General of the opposition PPT who says the MUD must broaden its social base beyond political parties and reject any shades of Venezuela’s old “puntofijismo” if it wants to defeat President Hugo Chavez in 2012 elections. Meanwhile, the CS Monitor has a critique of the minimum wage hikes announced by President Chavez last week, contending the 26.5% raise will not keep up with inflation, which is expected to be between 28% and 30% in 2011. It’s also interesting to note, as the CSM does, that Chavez has raised the minimum wage ahead of May Day every year since 1999. On the other major economic policy announcement made last week – the new taxes on oil producers in Venezuela – Setty has excellent analysis (here and here) on why the new “special contributions” were implemented and who will be affected by them (as well as who won’t).

· Regional election news: In Peru, BBC Mundo says Alejandro Toledo and his Peru Posible party will not be publicly endorsing either Ollanta Humala or Keiko Fujimori. The news would seem to be the biggest blow to Humala, who has been actively courting the former president and his supporters. More than not endorsing, Peru Posible says any member of its party who engages in active campaigning for either candidate will be “penalized with expulsion” from the party. In Guatemala, El Periódico publishes new poll numbers from Borge y Asociado showing Otto Perez Molina still in front of Sandra Torres, 34% to 21%. And in the DR, AQ says first lady Margarita Cedeno will not be making a run for president in 2012 to replace her husband Leonel Fernandez.

· In Haiti, TIME’s Tim Padgett on this week’s allegations of legislative vote fraud. In the Miami Herald, CSIS’s Johanna Mendelson Forman on why Michel Martelly should not resurrect and remobilize the Haitian military. Rather, she suggests, a “territorial civil defense force,” capable of acting as both a police force and national guard, be created, modeled, perhaps, after Costa Rica’s national police.

· The Guardian, earlier in the week, featured former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet in her new post at UN Women.

· And in Miami, the death of notorious anti-Castro militant Orlando Bosch yesterday. As the Miami Herald reports, Bosch – along with the recently acquitted Luis Posada Carriles – was the most identifiable face of the violent, anti-Castro counter-revolution in South Florida. He was 84.

Argentina's Past That Has Not Yet Passed

Fifty-two year-old Argentine rights activist Victor Oscar Martinez re-appeared late Wednesday after disappearing three days prior. After leaving his home in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo on Monday, Martinez’s lawyer said Thursday that her client was abducted, heavily sedated, and held in an unidentified location. Martinez says his captors threatened him and his family, saying he should leave the country and not testify in a new human rights investigation against a former military official he has long said was involved in the death of Bishop Carlos Horacio Ponce de León over thirty years ago.

On July 11, 1977, Martínez was traveling with the Bishop to the deliver evidence of military human rights crimes to the Vatican’s embassy in Buenos Aires when the car the two were traveling in mysteriously crashed. Martínez, then just 19, survived the accident but says he was later detained and tortured by the military who sought information about the work being carried out by Bishop Ponce de Leon.

The New York Times says a new inquiry into the Bishop’s death is in the process of being reopened and Martinez was expected to be called to testify once again.

Argentina’s Página 12 has the first interview with Martinez since being released.

Today’s bullet points:

· In Honduras, Grupo Dinant, a biofuels company controlled by Honduran oligarch Miguel Facussé, may be folding after recently losing a $20 million loan from a German development bank – this according to Dinant’s treasurer Roger Pineda who spoke with Bloomberg earlier in the week. The German environmental and rights groups CDM Watch and Food First Information and Action Network were among those lobbying the German Bank to halt its loan to Facussé, saying Dinant may not hold legal claims to its land and is suspected of being involved in the killings of peasant activists in the Lower Aguan Valley. Pineda calls those claims blackmail and says the jobs of as many of 8,000 are now in jeopardy. Last week Grupo Dinant also lost the backing of the EDF Trading – a French carbon trading company – on a biogas project in the Aguán Valley. Rights abuse claims are suspected of influencing that decision as well. More from Honduras Culture and Politics.

· McClatchy has the latest story on the growing presence of drug gangs in Central America, reporting from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Mexico’s Proceso looks at the presence of Mexican drug cartels in Costa Rica. The Washington Post reports on the now deserted Highway 101, aka the “Highway of Death,” in Tamaulipas near which 145 bodies have been found in recent weeks. Reuters says the body count at a new mass grave in the state of Durango has risen to 37. And Moises Naím, at the Huffington Post, asks, who is responsible for “losing” Mexico? Decades of tolerance for traffickers by the Mexican government? The Calderón government’s militarization of the drug wars in 2006? The drug market in the US? Naím argues all of these things are to blame. His conclusion: that the problem start being treated as a national one, rather than one that can be attributed to any particular leader or party, past or present.

· Uruguay’s lower chamber is expected to approve new legislation that will allow personal cultivation and consumption of small amounts of marijuana next week. Uruguay’s El País reports.

· The US Treasury Dept. has finally published new Cuba travel rules announced by the Obama administration in January. Details from the Miami Herald.

· Venezuelanalysis reports on protests by rural activists in Venezuela demanding an investigation into the killing of two peasant activists a week and a half ago in the state of Barinas.

· BBC with the latest look at growing divisions between Rafael Correa and indigenous groups in Ecuador

· And Raúl Zibechi, at the Americas Program, has an extraordinary look at major worker protests that erupted in Brazil’s Amazon last month. Thousands of workers have been brought into formerly isolated regions of the Amazon to implement the government’s infrastructure construction agenda – most notably dam building. Zibechi focuses on the plan to construct four dams on the Madeira River, two of which have already begun along the Bolivian border. Some 20,000 workers are now working on those two projects alone, often in less than decent conditions.

How to Make a Peruvian PT

Peruvian presidential contenders Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori have begun the task of pact-making, courting the support of both their now former rivals and, according to the BBC, the elusive Peruvian “moderate.” For Humala that apparently means talking more about Brazil. Interviewed on Peruvian radio yesterday, Humala says he “recognizes there is a successful process underway in Brazil” – one which has combined economic growth, social inclusion and a “macroeconomic equilibrium.”

Humala apparently doesn’t have to look far for Brazil talking points. Spain’s El País reports this morning that Humala has, since January, been counseled on campaign strategy by two Brazilian PT strategists, Luis Favre and Valdemir Garreta. Both men ran Lula’s 2002 campaign in 2002, successfully softening the image of the longtime trade union leader. In fact, Jacqueline Fowks of IDL-Reporteros has noted that Humala’s “Carta Compromiso con el Pueblo Peruano,” presented to assuage the worries of Peru’s business elites, is “identical” to Lula’s “Carta ao Povo Brasileiro” used to accomplish the same goal in Brazil back in 2002.

Like Lula before him, Humala has also sought to bring into his inner circle a number of so-called moderates. El País highlights Harvard-trained lawyer Beatriz Merino, considered by some to be the frontrunner for prime minister in a future Humala government. Merino held that same position under Alejandro Toledo and has more recently acted as Peru’s omsbudman under Alan García.

Connecting the political dots and there appears Mario Vargas Llosa – an apparently close friend of Merino. Interestingly, Vargas Lllosa seems to be walking back his provocative talk last week of cancer versus AIDS, a reference to a then hypothetical runoff between Humala and Fujmori. Speaking in Chile Tuesday, Vargas Llosa, a supporter of Alejandro Toledo in round-one, suggested he could actually vote for Ollanta Humala. Calling the presidency of Alberto Fujimori “one of the most atrocious dictatorships we have ever read,” MVL ruled out the possibility of ever voting for the incarcerated ex-president’s daughter, but says, should Humala succeed in making some Lula-like alliances, he could be brought on board.

Voting is obligatory in Peru for those between the ages of 18 and 70. MVL just turned 75 so, in theory, he wouldn’t be forced to vote for anyone.

La República has a longer report today on the possibility of a Toledo-Humala pact. Again, much of the internal debate within Toledo’s Peru Posible party seems to be about whether or not Humala is capable of shoring up the sort of coalition Lula put together under the PT in Brazil.

Humala also met with former Lima mayor Luis Castaneda yesterday evening, although a pact there – at least at the moment – seems a bit more distant. A similar story with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Thus far, the only new movement I’ve seen in favor of Keiko Fujimori are some unconfirmed statements about investors and members of country’s economic upper crust siding with Keiko Fujimori -- that and the views of some in the rabidly anti-chavista blogosphere (here and here). It’s far too early to say anything with certainty, but the next month and a half should prove to be interesting.

Today’s bullet points:

· After twelve hours of intense debate Tuesday, Uruguay’s Senate, in a 16-15 vote, passed legislation that would overturn that country’s 1986 “Ley de Caducidad” which has provided a form of amnesty to numerous human rights violators from the country’s twelve year dictatorship (1973-1985). The bill will now go to the house where it is expected to be approved with only minor changes. But Tuesday’s passage did not come without its share of contestation. After voters rejected overturning the law twice in the last two decades (most recently in 2009), the governing Frente Amplio coalition’s decision to push for annulment has created some notable fault lines within the coalition itself – the most visible being the unexpected resignation yesterday of longtime FA Senator Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro from the upper chamber. Huidobro, one of the most recognizable leaders of the Tupamaro guerrilla movement during the 1960s and early 1970s, voted with his party, but said he would express his disapproval of the party’s decision reverse the popular will by giving up his Senate seat.

· Speaking on Spanish television during his visit to Madrid this week, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said neighboring Venezuela is no longer harboring FARC rebels. He added that the government of Hugo Chavez has delivered on its promise to prevent the guerrilla group from crossing back and forth across the Colombia-Venezuela border. BBC reports on the new statements, adding that, President Alvaro Uribe used Twitter to subtly disagree with the statements made by Mr. Santos Tuesday. More from Semana.

· Also on Venezuela and Colombia, Colombian ambassador to the US, Gabriel Silva responds to Jackson Diehl’s recent column on the Walid Makled case, in a letter to the editor at the Washington Post.

· The Wall Street Journal highlights the various commercial accords signed between China and Brazil Tuesday. Perhaps the most notable agreement: a $1.5 billion deal that will send Brazilian Embraer aircrafts to China. After worries that Brazil’s exports to China were commodity-heavy, the new deal Tuesday is pretty significant breakthrough. It also includes plans to build a China-Brazil joint venture facility in China for the production of Embraer jets. On the issue of Brazil’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, the Chinese position is a bit difficult to read. Via Brazil’s Estadao: a joint communiqué released Tuesday reads China “understands and supports Brazil’s aspiration to play a more prominent role in the UN.” According to the paper the Chinese government has, in past occasions, voiced more support for Brazil’s bid for a permanent UNSC seat and the unclear language here may be attributable to China-Japan relations. More on arrival of fellow BRICS – Russia, India, and now South Africa – to this week’s China meetings, at the Wall Street Journal

· Mercopress says recent OECD addition, Chile, has some of the worst social indicators among the world’s so-called “rich nations.” Most notably, Chile continues to struggle with high income inequality – the highest, in fact, of all 34 OECD countries.

· In Mexico, 32 more bodies were discovered in the mass graves of Tamaulipas yesterday, bringing the total up to 120, according to Mexico’s El Universal. Forensic experts say that number could continue to rise. Meanwhile, the Mexican government, in its first statements about who the perpetrators of the massacre might have been, has pointed the finger at the Zetas. Apparently 17 individuals have been detained already in connection to the killings.

· CS Monitor reports on recent statements by top US military officials who now say the so-called “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is “the deadliest zone in the world outside of active war zones.”

· McClatchy reports on the new 2010 State Department human rights report on Honduras, which, among other things, highlights rising reports of hate crimes targeting the LGBT community – and the impunity with which such crimes have been met. McClatchy: “Homicides roiling the gay, lesbian and transgender community have earned Honduras comparisons to Uganda, the African nation that recently debated a proposed law that would make homosexuality subject to the death penalty in some instances.”

· The LA Times and Bloomberg report on the collapse of the short-lived PAN-PRD alliance, at least in Mexico state.

· Officials from Costa Rica and Nicaragua were able to put an on-going border dispute aside, meeting yesterday to discuss the possibility of new counternarcotics and security cooperation. No breakthroughs, apparently, although the two countries agreed to hold another set of meetings about such matters in early May. La Nación reports.

· The AP says a government panel is looking into the possibility of decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana in Jamaica.

· And finally, from the Washington Post over the weekend, a great report about the return of anti-communism on Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s House Foreign Affairs Committee. There are a lot of great quotes, but of interest to Latin Americanists may be this one from an individual the paper identifies as “a former staffer who like other aides interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals.” About the congresswoman’s Cuba policy, he/she says: “A government that has said one nice thing about the Cuba regime, they are [seen as] an enemy. There’s no nuance, no subtlety. None.”

Honduran Teachers Continue Protests, Despite Suspension Threats

Teacher protests continued in Honduras Monday, despite a threat from President Pepe Lobo that his government would begin suspending, without pay, those who did not return to their classrooms this week. AP reports that Honduran police used tear gas and water cannons to break up a demonstration on one of Tegucigalpa’s principal avenues yesterday. Teachers were joined by both students and members of the country’s 14,000-member health workers union for much of Monday’s demonstrations. In its Spanish-language coverage, AP says approx. 30% of healthcare facilities were affected by yesterday’s work stoppages, although it appears healthcare workers had at least temporarily ended their strike sometime late yesterday.

There’s talk in La Tribuna this morning of possible dialogue beginning between the country’s teachers union (FOMH) and the government, although it remains unclear what the result of that dialogue might be. For its part, the AP suggests the conflict could deepen in the coming days, rather than subside, after a call for a Wednesday general strike was made by the National Resistance (FNRP) over the weekend.

The protests, triggered by six months of unpaid wages to Honduran teachers, are now entering their third week. Demonstrators have are also voicing their opposition to a new education bill which would restructure the country’s public education system. Today’s reporting from the AP adds that the return of former president Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a June 2009 coup, was among the demands voiced during Monday demonstrations.

At a Monday news conference President Pepe Lobo did little to address the demands of protestors, instead insisting their goal was to “destabilize” his government. Lobo:

“All of this is part of an ideological strategy to provoke difficulties, especially now that there is the possibility of returning to the OAS at the next general assembly in June.”

In addition to suspending striking teachers without pay, Lobo argued over the weekend he could take steps to unilaterally dissolve the country’s teachers union, if protests continued.

There were also reports of demonstrations outside of the capital Monday. The FNRP says Miriam Mirando, leader of OFRANEH (Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras), was arrested – but later released – as protests blocked a road connecting San Pedro Sula with La Ceiba. San Pedro Sula’s Tiempo has more saying some schools remained closed Monday while others appear to have re-opened for at least part of the day.

Today’s bullet points:

· In Venezuela, the AP on Sunday reported that university protestors in Venezuela had ended their month-long hunger strike, maintaining that President Hugo Chavez’s government had met their demands. One of the leaders of the protests, Diego Scharifker, says Venezuela’s education minister promised demonstrators that the government would increase budgets for university scholarships, cafeterias, transportation and other student services. The apparent breakthrough came after four students sewed their mouths partially shut to, in the AP’s words, “dramatize the strike.”

· Former US president Jimmy Carter arrived in Havana, Cuba Monday – the beginning of a three-day visit to the island which will include talks with Raul Castro later today. The AP says he and his wife Rosalynn were greeted at the airport by Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, and Jonathan Farrar, the head of the US Interest Section in Havana. Also traveling with Carter, according to the Miami Herald, are Robert Pastor, the White House’s Cuba point man during Carter years; Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program; and John Hardman, president of the Carter Center. Former president Carter spent Monday meeting with some of the island’s most important religious figures– first leaders of Havana's Temple Beth Shalom and later Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the man who helped negotiate the release of the last 52 of 75 dissidents arrested in the “Black Spring” crackdown of 2003. A press conference is scheduled for sometime Wednesday. Freedom House’s Matthew Brady, in the Miami Herald, and Lilia Lopez at the Havana Note with optimistic opinions about the Carter visit.

· El País’s Javier Moreno runs a weekend interview with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Among the matters discussed: Calderon’s refusal to consider some sort of peace pact with organized crime, as well as Calderon’s feelings about the United States and its role in fueling violence with weapons and an appetite for drugs.

· Venezuela’s El Universal interviews former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias about the state of democracy in the region.

· In Argentina today, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will receive the University of La Plata’s Rodolfo Walsh prize for promoting popular communication and community media. The Financial Times reports, calling the decision a controversial one. Chavez begins a tour of the region in Argentina today.

· The Guardian reports on the business and education delegation the UK’s Liberal Democratic leader and current deputy PM, Nick Clegg will be leading to Mexico in the coming days. Later this week he’ll apparently be addressing the Mexican Senate – the first UK politician to do so and will be doing it in Spanish, no less.

· Bloomberg mentions a new free trade zone which in the works between Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile. All four countries are expected to meet in Lima in early May to finalize the new arrangement.

· Reuters on emerging differences between the IMF and Brazil over the best way to keep inflation down. The IMF has called for Brazil, and others, to further rein in stimulus spending. For its part, Brazil, according to Reuters, has thus far used high interest rates, curbs on lending, and new barriers against the entrance of speculative capital, or “hot money,” as a means of reducing inflationary risk.

· With news that oil is back over $100/barrel, Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA announced ambitious plans to increase its oil production from 3.01 million barrels per day (bpd) to 5 million bpd by 2014.

· The Washington Post yesterday charged President Obama with NIMBY-ism for supporting Brazil’s offshore oil drilling plans last week.

· David Grann at The New Yorker revisits the bizarre Rodrigo Rosenberg case in Guatemala, almost two years later.

· And finally, IPS on the growing opposition to the US/Europe military strikes launched against Libya within much of Latin America. Those who have spoken out against the military operations in recent days include Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, as well as the ALBA countries. Among those quoted is Uruguay’s Jose Mujica who told an Uruguayan newspaper this week that, “This attack implies a setback in the current international order. The remedy is much worse than the illness. This business of saving lives by bombing is an inexplicable contradiction.”

Suspension of "Presunto Culpable" Lifted

A Mexican appeals court has overturned a ban on screenings of “Presunto Culpable” (“Presumed Guilty”), the recently released documentary which depicts some of the most serious failings of Mexico’s criminal system. According to the AP, the court which heard the appeal said suspending viewing of the film violated freedom of information rights.

The decision, says the wire service, came just one day after the Cinepolis cinema chain finally agreed to stop screening the film in its Mexico theaters. The theater is expected to restart screenings of the movie shortly.

As discussed in recent days (Washington Post, New York Times), “Presunto Culpable” follows the story of 26-year-old José Antonio Zuniga – a young man wrongly convicted of a 2005 shooting murder, despite almost there being no real evidence against. The Post yesterday, on some of the fundamental problems of Mexico’s justice system which the documentary brings to light:

“In Mexico, criminal cases are not presented to juries but to a judge, who does not hear oral testimony but reads through reams of affidavits. More than 90 percent of defendants never actually see a judge, never see an arrest warrant and are convicted without any physical evidence.”

The film’s distribution was challenged by Victor Reyes Bravo, a relative of the individual Zuniga was charged with killing and one of the prosecution’s only witnesses in a case the New York Times describes as “manufactured.” Reyes Bravo appears in the film and says his privacy rights were violated in the process.

Zuniga was granted rare retrial, thanks to help of Roberto Hernandez, a Mexican lawyer and co-director of the film, and his wife and producer, Layda Negrete. His original sentence was first upheld and he was only exonerated after Hernandez’s filming of Zuniga’s retrial was shown to a higher court.

Before last week’s ruling, the Post said “Presunto Culpable” had become “the most popular documentary ever shown in Mexican theaters.” It’s received praise across the Mexican political spectrum. First lady Margarita Zavala called it “the best film” on Twitter last week. Mexico City mayor and presidential hopeful, Marcelo Ebrard of the PRD, had promised to show the film for free in the Zocalo. The last week’s media coverage has no doubt raised the film’s profile even higher, as The Guardian suggested yesterday.

Just ask a pirated DVD vendor on the streets of the Mexico City: “I can’t remember anything like this. Maybe Spider-Man 3 did as well, but I’m not even sure about that.”

To other stories:

· On violence in Mexico, the El Paso Times reported yesterday that Marisol Valles, the 21-year-old (former) Mexican police chief of the Juarez Valley town of Praxedis G. Guerrero was processed and released from an El Paso immigration detention center yesterday. An immigration judge is expected to hear her request for asylum at a future, but still undetermined, court date. On International Women’s Day yesterday, the CS Monitor with the latest on growing claims of “femicide” in Mexico. Marianne Mollmann of Human Rights Watch says the combination of “heightened illegal activity,” on the one hand, and the “shifting roles of working women in border cities like Juárez,” on the other, have created a “Molotov Cocktail of cultural phenomena that will lead to a lot of death, in particular a lot of death in women.” And the AP says legislators from the PRD, the PRI, and the PAN are all demanding that a joint US-Mexico working group be established to examine claims that the ATF intentionally allowed US guns to enter Mexico under its now much-criticized “Operation Fast and Furious.”

· On politics in Mexico, El Universal reports on new labor reform legislation being presented by the PRI in the coming days. And Gancho highlights this week’s announcement made by 2006 PRD presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that he will travel to Washington in September. Ganocho says it will be AMLO’s first trip to the US. In 2006, I remember AMLO using the fact that he did not even possess a passport to bolster his nationalist credentials.

· Boz picks ups news of the first casualties to come from Colombia’s training of Mexican security forces: the death of at least one Mexican soldier and four Colombians when two air force helicopters crashed into each other during a training exercise in the Colombian department of Tolima.

· Also in Colombia, news that 22 of 23 kidnapped oil workers appear to have been freed with the aid of the Colombian military just one day after being kidnapped en-masse by FARC rebels near the Colombia-Venezuela border. According to Bloomberg, one of the kidnapped men escaped on his own and provided information about his capture to the military who then set up some sort of “dragnet” which seems to have freed all but one of the 23. The kidnapped men are all employed by a third-party contracting company, South American Exploration, hired by the Calgary-based oil company Talisman Energy Inc. (TLM), which received rights last year to “explore and produce oil in areas of the nation once considered too risky because of guerrilla presence.”

· And EFE reports on the murder of human rights lawyer Ricardo Alberto Sierra this week in Medellin. The 52-year-old attorney had represented victims of Colombia’s right-wing death squads. EFE: “At the time of his death, Sierra was acting on behalf of victims of the Elmer Cardenas and Pacific blocs of the now ostensibly demobilized AUC militia federation, blamed for more than 20,000 killings over the course of two decades.”

· In Guatemala, the BBC says first lady Sandra Torres has officially announced her presidential candidacy ahead of September elections. Her announcement came despite a constitutional ban prohibiting relatives of any sitting president from running to replace him/her. Therefore, the BBC suggests the final decision about the matter will lie with Guatemala's constitutional court. Torres has been in charge of poverty relief programs during her husband’s time in office. She apparently made her announcement in Mixco, a lower class suburb of the capital.

· Salvadoran Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez, in El Salvador’s Prensa Gráfica, highlights the key agenda items for President Obama’s visit to the Central American country later this month. Martinez says the issue of greatest importance will be poverty and social development. After that regional security in Central America, migration, climate change, and finally trade will be discussed.

· El Faro reports on the International Court of Justice’s partial ruling that both Nicaragua and Costa Rica not send troops to the area of dispute around the San Juan River. Interestingly, both Nicaragua and Costa Rica seem quite pleased about the preliminary decision. A final decision on the case, however, might not come for many years, says El Faro.

· Spain’s El País reports that Bolivian President Evo Morales has ordered an international arrest order against former National Police Colonel, Jorge Roger Sanchez Pantoja, for alleged drug trafficking.

· Human Rights Watch has a new statement on the detention of Venezuelan Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni. HRW thanks the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for continuing to monitor the case and asks that the UN “press the government of Venezuela to drop all charges against [Afiuni].”

· BBC Mundo says a proposal to free some 10,000 “non-dangerous” prisoners in Chile in order to address issues of prison overcrowding will not include granting special release to prisoners over the age of 80. In other words, the around 70 individuals currently jailed for human rights crimes committed under the Pinochet dictatorship will remain in prison, if the proposal goes through – something the Chilean Left and rights groups have demanded.

· On Latin America-related international news and opinions: Mercopress reports on Chilean President Sebastian Pinera’s visit to both Israel and Palestine earlier this week. Chile became one of many Latin American states to recently recognize a Palestinian state, but, unlike Brazil and Argentina, Pinera continues to avoid questions about whether or not that recognition came with pre-1967 borders. Infolatam reports a date (March 28) has been set for the first bilateral meeting between Hugo Chavez and Dilma Rousseff. The meeting will continue a tradition begun between Chavez and Dilma’s predecessor, Lula da Silva, in which leaders from the two countries met every four months to discuss bilateral and regional issues.

· IANS reports on trilateral meetings this week between South Africa, Brazil, and India in New Delhi. In a statement Tuesday, the three countries called for comprehensive UN Security Council reform, including the expansion of permanent and non-permanent membership. The foreign ministers also issued a short statement on the Middle East, saying they were “closely attentive to the present political unrest in several Middle Eastern and northern African countries” and stressed the “expectation that the changes sweeping the region follow a peaceful course.” No specific comment about on-going talks in the US and elsewhere about military intervention in Libya, namely the possible establishment of a no-fly zone, although Brazil did say it would oppose such actions last weekend.

· And finally Kevin Gallagher, in The Guardian, says a Chinese or East Asian model of development has officially replaced the Washington Consensus in Latin America. “For 30 years, Washington has been shopping a trade-not-aid based economic diplomacy across Latin America and beyond,” Gallagher writes. At the moment, Colombia and Mexico remain the only “card carrying” members of that Consensus – although that could soon be changing. The rest of the region, Prof. Gallagher maintains, has opted for Chinese loans that have few “conditionalities” and have been better suited to fund major infrastructure projects across Latin America.

Brazil, ALBA Reject Military Action in Libya

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.