A Debt-free and Politically Independent Latin America

The Miami Herald’s offered coverage of this week’s Americas Conference, being held in Coral Gables, Florida the past few days and a handful of their reports are worth a read. The event, organized by the paper and the World Bank, has brought together officials from around the region to discuss the state of the region’s economies. Augusto de la Torre, the Bank’s chief economist for Latin America and author of a an interesting op-ed published earlier this week, is quoted in today’s report on the event, offering a glowing assessment of Latin America’s economic present. De la Torre:

“The opportunities have presented themselves [to the region] and the stars have aligned themselves in a way we haven't seen in 50 years.”

According to the paper, Latin America is today “in better shape economically than many of the rich countries, which are dogged by slow growth and troubled balance sheets.” Why? In contrast with the 1990s [and the 1980s for that matter], the region is no longer strapped by heavy debt burdens, the paper says. And meanwhile, many countries [the paper cites Colombia, Chile, and Mexico] have successfully “strengthened their fiscal and financial institutions and now boast Central Banks as credible and professional as those of rich nations.”

As I’ve written here before, there still remains the issue of commodity dependence – a worry which appears to be growing, as the respected UN Economic Commission for Latin America highlighted in its recent assessment of the region’s relationship with the world economy. This fact has led economic experts to suggest windfall commodity profits be both saved and strategically invested to diversify exports and increase the production of value-added manufactured products. But, more broadly speaking much of the region’s success may be credited to another logic – arguably the product of the last decade plus. Here’s how Bolivian Finance Minister Luis Arce articulated it at this week’s conference:

“There's not one recipe for all countries and we decided to rethink our own economic model. This is [policy] made by Bolivians for Bolivia.”

While rarely mentioned, Bolivia’s economy [3.4% economic growth and just 7.9% unemployment last year] has provided some of the region’s strongest results of late. For his part, El Salvador’s Mauricio Funes suggested a similar logic was guiding his attempt at building “effective and efficient” economic policies for El Salvador, neither aligning himself with “US-style capitalism” or “Venezuela-inspired socialism.” That sort of independent-minded economic thinking – balancing national needs with a given country’s particular capacities and resources – seems to be a hopeful trend seen around much of the region – and perhaps an overlooked explanation for the region’s economic gains of recent years.

Moving on:

· Questions about the future of the Cuban economy are on the minds of many after this week’s announcement that the Cuban government plans to soon shed a half million public sector jobs. Time asks what all those newly unemployed persons will do and what a new Cuban economic model will look like. “Monday's declaration opens the door to a significant expansion of the Cuban self-employed, from mechanics to hairstylists,” the magazine says. In addition, Time reports that inside sources suggest “European governments and the Roman Catholic Church are in discussions with Havana about establishing microloan projects in Cuba to help seed small enterprises like bodegas and furniture-making shops.” And there may even be funds coming from the US. “The Washington-based Cuba Study Group, a nonprofit headed by Cuban-American business leaders, has already proposed, along with Mexico's Banco Comportamos, a $10 million microloan program for Cuban entrepreneurs,” according to Tim Padgett’s reporting.

· Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune and LA Times say that Cuba’s economic changes offer the right moment for serious US Cuba policy changes. The LA Times:

“Change is underway in the Cuban economy. It is time for Congress to end the archaic and ineffectual U.S. trade embargo and get out of the way of U.S. investment in Cuba before American firms lose out to those from Europe, Brazil and elsewhere…The U.S. embargo should be lifted, so American businesses can go to Cuba and get busy.”

For a more nuanced look at how Cubans themselves might adapt to the island’s economic changes, IPS has a good report.

· It took the Peruvian Congress just one day to repeal the controversial Decree 1097 after President Alan Garcia’s about-face Monday. It’s been a busy week for the Peruvian president who also reshuffled his cabinet yesterday to, in Reuters’ words, “pave the way for his party to launch a candidate in next year's presidential election.” Out is former Prime Minister Javier Velasquez, who wants to become the ruling APRA party's nominee for president in April’s vote. In as the new PM is Jose Chang, Garcia’s former education minister. Ismael Benavides, a well-respected banker, will also be replacing Mercedes Araoz as finance minister. Interestingly, it also looks like the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington is hosting another Peruvian presidential contender today – Ollanta Humala. I hope to have more tomorrow on his talk. And, from EFE, news that Peru will be building a counter-narcotics base near its border with Colombia and Brazil, which it hopes to be the site for joint operations with officials from both neighboring countries.

· In Colombia, the head of the Colombian police’s anti-narcotic division suggested that the FARC is today the country’s biggest drug cartel. The FARC is “the big cartel that controls the [cocaine] laboratories in the jungle and handles the drug exit routes out of Colombia,” Gen. Cesar Pinzon told El Tiempo in an interview published Monday. He also cited growing ties between the group and Mexican cartels. That statement follows a recent report from the independent think tank Indepaz which says “paramilitary heirs” are today the principal source of violence in the country.

· Also from Colombia, news that Sen. Javier Caceres, former president of the Colombian congress, was arrested Tuesday for his alleged ties with paramilitary groups. The arrest warrant, says CNN, was issued by the country’s Supreme Court. And the CUT labor federation in Colombia says 36 Colombian trade unionists have been killed so far in 2010. That’s up from 26 murders over the same 9 months in 2009.

· On Mexico, an interesting AP report suggests a new trend in the Mexican drug war: the surrendering of cartel kingpins without a fight. “The criminals are no longer putting up resistance” when surrounded, Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Jose Luis Vergara said after Sunday's arrest of Sergio Villarreal Barragan. The New York Times reports on the resignation of Mexico’s top migration official, three weeks after 72 Central and South American migrants were massacred in Tamaulipas. Cecilia Romero Castillo, the commissioner of the National Migration Institute, offered no reason for her exit but the resignation comes as little surprise. Both a report in the Washington Post and an opinion by Mexican historian Enrique Krauze in the Times assess Mexican violence amidst bicentennial festivities. And it’s been months since there have been any reports on former PAN leader Diego Fernandez de Cevallos – allegedly kidnapped in mid-May. EFE reports today, however, that the individuals claiming to be behind the abduction released a new statement this week, claiming the politico’s “own friends don’t care what his fate is.”

· A group of human rights organizations – among them Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Washington Office on Latin America – have released a statement urging Congress to withhold Mérida aid to Mexico due to continuing failures in the area of human rights.

· More from the Times on yesterday’s appointment of Michelle Bachelet to head a newly created UN agency which will work on international women’s rights issues.

· Reuters’ Frank Jack Daniel on Venezuelan parliamentary elections and the once-again rising popularity of Hugo Chavez. “New polls show that a recovery in his personal ratings, which began several months ago, continued in August,” Daniel writes. “A new survey by pro-government pollster GIS XXI said 52.6 percent of respondents planned to support candidates allied to Chavez, while 47.4 percent backed the opposition.” Meanwhile, “a poll last month by the well-respected IVAD polling firm, consulted by both the government and opposition, said 54.3 percent would vote Socialist and 45.7 percent for the opposition.”

· And finally, from the BBC, a report on how Venezuela’s voting system is apparently one of the “most advanced” anywhere in the world. That doesn’t mean the process is without some controversy, however. For some, too much technology raises a grand paradox about whether or not the government is capable of determining who voted for whom.

Garcia to Support Repeal of Peru's 1097

In an about-face, Peruvian President Alan García has asked his National Congress to repeal a controversial decree he issued two weeks ago which gives what Reuters calls “virtual amnesty” to hundreds of human rights violators. Here’s the chronology of what seems to be a pretty remarkable example of successful human rights community mobilization.

First, the decree under question. A statement from nearly 30 regional human rights groups, released late last week maintains that Decree 1097 seeks to guarantee that human rights violations which occurred in Peru during the 1990s are not considered “crimes against humanity” but rather common crimes. Moreover, rights defenders maintain the measure sets a “temporal limit” on those trials already in progress and requires those cases which have extended beyond that limit to be ended. In the words of WOLA, the decree amounts to “state-sanctioned impunity.”

As reported here yesterday, Alan García, seemed to be feeling the heat from the rights community over the weekend, going so far as to tell the press Sunday that if the Peruvian Congress disapproves of the decree, he would not stand in the way of their overturning it. Then Monday, the bombshell. In a letter to the President, one of the country’s most well-known public intellectuals, author Mario Vargas Llosa, added his voice to the growing opposition. Vargas Llosa:

“The measure shows contempt for all the democratic sectors of this country as well as international public opinion, as displayed in statements by the UN, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, the Episcopal Conference, the Defensoria del Pueblo and representatives of numerous other social and political organizations, among them some APRA congressmen. I am in total agreement with these protests.”

But Vargas Llosa – the president of the country’s Comisión del Lugar de la Memoria -- went one step further, resigning from the post to which President García had appointed him. “The reason for my resignation,” said Vargas Llosa Monday, “is the recent Legislative Decree 1097, which undeniably constitutes a disguised amnesty intended to benefit a significant number of individuals connected to the dictatorship.” The Peruvian author continued: “There is an essential incompatibility between sponsoring the construction of a museum to remember the victims of violence unleashed by the Shining Path terrorists and giving liberty to those who, in the course of repressing fanatics, also committed horrendous crimes.”

Upon receiving the letter, IDL-Reporteros says Mr. Garcia immediately telephoned Vargas Llosa, currently in Paris, and indicated that 1) Rafael Rey, the country’s defense minister and one of the principal authors of the decree, was going to be relieved of his position and 2) a bill would be sent to the Congress to overturn decree 1097. Vargas Llosa thanked the president for the change in direction but said he had no intention of revoking his resignation. Just hours later came the public announcement, in just 19 words, released via Twitter. “Ejecutivo presenta Proyecto de Ley para derogar Decreto Legislativo 1097 y pide a Congreso tramitarlo con carácter de urgencia.” For his part, the aforementioned Rey had this to say late Monday: “If Congress annuls [DL 1097], that’s their right, but I will fight until the end.”

To other stories:

· The Lat Am headline in the US press this morning comes from Cuba where the Cuban Worker’s Central announced yesterday that the government would be laying off some 500,000 from the public sector – what the AP says will amount to “one-tenth of the island's 5.1 million-strong work force looking for jobs in the private sector by April 2011.” The New York Times this morning quotes the younger Castro, who in a speech before the National Assembly last month, argued the country had to “erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working.” Since taking over from his brother Fidel, the Times notes that Raul’s government has “handed tens of thousands of acres of state-held farmland to private farmers and begun freeing up a market for agricultural supplies. It has loosened restrictions on cell phones and other electronics, and created a few areas for private business, allowing barbers’ shops to become cooperatives and giving more licenses to private taxi drivers.” But Monday’s announcement may be the most dramatic economic reform “since the early 1990s,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Julia Sweig, recently back from meeting with Fidel Castro in Havana, says the Cuban government is “in the process of massively reducing the size and participation of the state in Cuban life” -- adding that the government may be preparing to open up a vast range of private activities, including light manufacturing like furniture making and garment production. Coming after mixed messages from Fidel on the economy last week, here’s Sweig with today’s quote of the day. “When global capitalism takes over the world, Fidel's going to be the last man standing, but he's also not going to get in his brother's way.” More good analysis from Phil Peters at the Cuban Triangle.

· From Colombia, a Pro Publica report (also featured in the Washington Post over the weekend) looks at the cases of more than a dozen Colombian paramilitaries extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges. “The extraditions stunned Colombians, who had hoped that testimony from the men, given as part of a national amnesty program, would help expose the truth about two decades of vicious murders, assaults and kidnappings,” says the piece, and that outrage reached its “boiling point” earlier in the year when a US District Judge “blocked public access to seven of the paramilitary leaders' cases, erasing virtually every trace of their existence.” According to the report, the cases are “are drawing new attention to the practice of sealing entire court files, triggering a broader controversy over judicial secrecy.”

· Also from Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos has announced the intensification of military operations against the FARC after a “string of deadly attacks” launched by the rebel group in recent weeks. And if you have 45 minutes today, I highly recommend Al-Jazeera’s new feature video report on Colombia. Entitled “Heirs,” Latin American correspondent Teresa Bo takes viewers through the complex history of Colombian violence.

· Seeking ways to put a halt to growing citizen insecurity in Guatemala, President Alvaro Colom suggested this week that his country should consider supporting an anti-gang law, together with neighbors Honduras and El Salvador. Colom said the matter would be on his agenda the next time he sits down with Salvadoran leader Mauricio Funes, whose country implemented similar legislation last week.

· Also on Guatemala, historian Greg Grandin has a new piece on meaning of Rigoberta Menchú and Latin America’s cold war, in The Nation. The essay is adapted from the introduction to the forthcoming book, “Who Is Rigoberta Menchú? (Verso, 2011).

· AQ with a brief look at the Chilean national deputies who joined 34 Mapuche activists-turned prisoners on a hunger strike, protesting the use of Pinochet-era anti-terrorism laws to charge indigenous civilians for their role in land disputes with the government.

· Adrienne Pine at Quotha says the FNRP has exceeded its goal of collecting 1,250,000 signatures calling for a national constituent assembly, and “for the return of Presidente Manuel Zelaya Rosales, Father Andrés Tamayo and the rest of those Hondurans who have been expatriated and are in political exile.”

· More on national efforts to end cold war era impunity in the Southern Cone, from IPS.

· Politico’s Laura Rozen reports that the UN will announce today that former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will head the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

· And finally, there’s an interesting debate on the Venezuelan economy at Setty’s Notebook. The comments follow the release of a recent CEPR paper, co-authored by Mark Weisbrot and Rebecca Ray, which argues the Venezuelan economy may be coming out of recession. Weisbrot, Ray, and others offer replies in the comments section of Setty’s post. With the anti-chavista talking points, the executive director of the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, writes a piece on Venezuela for Commentary.

The US and the Drug Wars: Whose "Shared Responsibility"?

"Martha Garnica devised secret codes, passed stacks of cash through car windows and sketched out a map for smugglers to safely haul drugs and undocumented workers across the border,” writes the Washington Post’s Ceci Connolly in a long feature piece which ran over the weekend. For her work, she was “richly rewarded” – a large house, pool, two hummers and vacations to Europe. But, until her 2009 arrest, Garnica lived a double life – in the shadows a drug cartel asset; in public life, a longtime US border patrol agent. The Post says the Garnica story illustrates the often-ignored “role of the United States” in the drug trade. “Corruption is on the rise in the ranks of U.S. law enforcement working the border,” according to the paper, with the frontline of US Customs and Border Protection experiencing the most “acute” problems [The number of CBP corruption investigations opened by the inspector general climbed from 245 in 2006 to more than 770 this year. Corruption cases at its sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rose from 66 to more than 220 over the same period.]

It could be argued, however, that the lack of attention to the United States in debates about the drug war is increasingly becoming a phenomenon isolated to the United States itself. Mexican and other Latin American officials have become quite willing to argue that the US shares responsibility for drug war woes. Late last week, for example, Felipe Calderon maintained that principal responsibility for the recent massacre that took the lives of 72 migrants lay in the United States. “If we are talking about responsibility, at the root of this, in the case of immigration, is the lack of immigration legislation in the United States that would recognize this phenomenon,” Calderon said shortly after pledging to step up joint efforts for combating drug gangs with his Salvadoran counterpart, Mauricio Funes. [For his part, Mr. Funes clarified that home nations also bear responsibility for having not generated the proper “employment” and “welfare” conditions for their citizens.]

This comes after the firing of 3200 members of the Mexican national police force a little over a week ago.NPR has a report on the dismissals, writing that “hundreds of federal cops took to the streets of Ciudad Juarez in an extraordinary demonstration to accuse their commanders of corruption and colluding with the criminals they are supposed to be fighting.” Taken together with new questions about increased US military and police aid to Mexico – particularly a replication Colombia-like counter-insurgency strategies, as suggested last week by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – things get increasingly complicated. Adam Isacson at Just the Facts has more.

Still in Mexico:

· The International Press Institute said this weekend that Mexico is the world’s most dangerous country for journalists. “In the first eight months of 2010, 52 journalists were killed because of their work. That’s only four fewer than in the same period last year and it’s 52 too many,” says the Vienna-based organization’s interim director. IPI has also maintained that Latin America, as a region, is the most dangerous in the world for journalists. The Wall Street Journal examines the exodus of Mexican elites from the country’s industrial capital of Monterrey in the wake of growing cartel activity there. U.S. farm equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. ordered executives with children to leave the city. The US State Dept. recently told its employees they should move their children out. And according to the paper, “The security situation is so alarming…that the mayor has sent his family to live in Dallas...” The New York Times, meanwhile, reports on Mexico’s bicentennial celebrations, and the muted enthusiasm which surrounds them. However, to paraphrase the Wilson Center’s Andrew Selee, quoted in the piece, “history and symbols” still may be things that unite a Mexican body politic being torn apart by violence. News from Reuters on the latest arrest of a major cartel kingpin – this time another Beltran Leyva capo Sergio Villarreal, aka “El Grande.” The Wilson Center and the Univ. of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute have a new working paper out on US arms going south to Mexico. And two opinions. David Rothkopf says Hillary Clinton’s Colombia comparisons were needed as a “wake up call” about the increasingly dire situation of violence in Mexico. Laura Carlsen, on the other hand, argues that rather than translating “shared responsibility” into increased military aid for Mexico, the United States should finally engage with its own out-of-date drug policies.

· From Colombia, the BBC reports on a new report from the Colombia-based think tank Idepaz which says armed drug trafficking organizations (or so-called “paramilitary successor groups,” in the words of Human Rights Watch) now represent the principal source of violence in the country – more so than left-wing rebel groups. The Indepaz study says such organizations are now present in 29 of the country’s 32 provinces and count some 13,000 individuals among their members. The BBC: “With names like the Black Eagles and Rastrojos, they combine control of cocaine production and smuggling with extreme violence, though with less of a political agenda.”

· Responding to presidential decrees in Peru which could limit the scope and effectiveness of human rights prosecutions there, Human Rights Watch is calling on the Peruvian government to make serious amendments. “President García has created a legal framework that amounts to a blanket amnesty for the vast majority of abuses by state agents in Peru's recent history, including during his first presidency,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “This means that those responsible for killings, ‘disappearances,' and torture will never have to pay the price for their crimes.” U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin, adds that there is the “perception of a climate of impunity” in Peru. More from IPS. President Alan García, meanwhile, now seems willing to negotiate. If the Peruvian parliament overturns decree 1097, García said Sunday, he would not stand in their way.

· From the LA Times, excerpts from an interview with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes who was visiting Los Angeles last week. Topics of discussion include: links between Salvadoran gangs and the international drug trade, immigration, and economics. Returning to the question of defining “shared responsibility, Funes maintains that “if the United States is concerned about [illegal] immigration and drug trafficking, the best solution is a strategic alliance that together will bring development and job opportunities and social benefits to El Salvador.”

· More analysis on upcoming Venezuelan legislative elections, from the Americas Society.

· After a reporter’s call with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Howard Berman the Havana Notehas the latest on where Cuba travel/trade legislation may be headed.

· Finally, history, economics, and public policy. Andres Oppenheimer, in the Miami Herald, takes a dig at the place of history in the region’s current political discourse. Apparently the Herald columnist has a new book coming out entitled, MOVE ON! Latin America's Obsession with the Past, and 12 Challenges for the Future. His argument:

“Instead of spending so much time on their fallen independence heroes, countries should spend more time debating why only 1.9 percent of all the world's investments in research and development are going to Latin America, or why there is no single Latin American university in the most prestigious ranking of the world's 100 best higher education institutions, or why a small Asian nation such as South Korea produces 80,000 international patents a year, while all Latin American countries combined produce fewer than 1,200.”

Whether or not history and public policy can in fact be separated out as neatly as Oppenheimer believes, the piece seems appropriately read alongside an interesting mix of other reports out this week. The UNDP says efforts at poverty-reduction still have a long way to go whileinequality in Latin America remains the highest anywhere in the world. Following last week’s discussion of the new ECLA report of Latin America in the World Economy, the World Bank has a report out examining whether commodity exports, the historic source of both the region’s economic growth and stagnation, have been “more of a curse than a blessing for the region.” Its conclusion (via the Miami Herald): “If properly managed, commodities can be a key source of economic growth for Latin America and the Caribbean. In fact, the 2001-2008 commodities boom -- the longest since records have been kept -- helped the region bounce back more quickly from the global economic crisis.” An important reason for this, according to World Bank chief economist, Augusto de la Torre, has been the story of improved Latin American governance. De la Torre: It “is far more common to see commodity extraction linked to other economic activities directly benefiting the source country.” On that, ECLA’s Alicia Barcena, quoted in this weekend’s New York Times has more. “The lesson of the 1990s and 2000 decades is there has to be an active public policy. There has to be the role of the public sector to bring up the level of the people in the schools, to invest in education and science and technology.”

Colombia, Mexico, and Mixed Messaging

It took less than 24 hours for the White House to realize the controversial nature of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Wednesday comments, comparing the drug wars of Mexico to those of Colombia two decades ago and hinting at the replication of Plan Colombia for Mexico and its Central American neighbors. In an interview given to a Mexican correspondent from the paper La Opinión yesterday, President Obama seemed to correct the words of his top diplomat, maintaining that “Mexico is a vast and progressive democracy, with a growing economy, and as a result you cannot compare what is happening in Mexico with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago.”

So too were Clinton’s assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Arturo Valenzuela, and the country’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske sent out to the press on a damage control detail. Valenzuela nuanced Clinton’s talk of an “insurgency” in Mexico, contending that the term “is not being used in the same sense as the Colombian insurgency” as “it is not a political upheaval within society that is trying to takeover the state.” For his part, Kerlikowske said great care should be given when tossing the word “insurgency” around in the Mexican context. The fact that there have been some car bombs is something causing "concern", Kerlikowske said Thursday, but "that does not translate automatically to insurgency."

The mixed message on Mexico represents what the Washington Post this morning is calling “a rare disagreement between Obama and Clinton.” The State Department, however, denies any such divergence exists. Here’s State Dept. spokesman PJ Crowley in an email to the Post:

“These are two different countries and different circumstances. The Secretary completely agrees…What she was saying is that, first, criminal organizations are challenging authority in Mexico as we saw in Colombia. The growing brutality is beginning to resemble what Colombia experienced. Colombia turned its situation around through decisive action by a democratic government, supported by the United States and the international community. We are seeing the same sustained action by the Mexican government. As she said also, this is a shared responsibility and we and others need to support Mexico in this effort.”

Further, the paper points out that Obama’s attempt to differentiate the Mexico situation from Colombia based on economic differences seemed historically inaccurate all-together. “Two decades ago in Colombia, the elected president, Cesar Gaviria, pushed through a series of economic reforms known as ‘the opening,’ which, despite drug-related violence, led to years of economic growth,” the Post writes.

Colombianization or not, the willingness of Ms. Clinton to use what might be called more “active” language when discussing the Mexico situation – and the fact that the White House felt obliged to issue so many clarifications – suggests some new (and likely monetarily significant) US-Mexico initiative may be on the horizon. As the Wall Street Journal reports today, “U.S. and Mexican officials say the Pentagon's Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies are discussing what aviation, surveillance and intelligence assets could be used—both inside Mexico and along the border—to help counter the drug cartels.” According to the report, however, in many cases, the biggest pushback for increased US military support in Mexico comes from the Mexican government itself, sensitive to incursions on its national sovereignty, particularly related to military and security issues.

Continuing:

· A quick wrap-up of other stories and opinions on the drug wars. At the Arizona Daily Star, organized-crime analyst Edgardo Buscaglia sees the Colombia/Mexico comparison as a fair one to be making, since both cases were/are “directly related to the weakness of the state.” Colombia's police director, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, seems to concur, arguing that “Mexico is on the cusp of a battle royal in which politicians, police and judges will increasingly be targeted and terror used against civilians - just as Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cocaine cartel did in their country,” to use the Daily Star’s words. Proceso and La Jornanda columnist and professor John Ackerman, in an op-ed in today’s LA Times offers a counter, calling Ms. Clinton’s Colombia analogy a “dangerous mistake.” Rather than militarize the drug war in Mexico further, Ackerman says the US should boost Mexico funding which deals with deeply rooted problems of corruption. Ackerman:

“Mexico needs to implement powerful institutional solutions that change the incentive equation for government officials. Specifically, it should create a new, fully independent and well-funded anti-corruption commission to work closely with civil society to oversee, investigate and catch wrongdoing by public servants.”

Meanwhile, former US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, Robert Bonner in today’s Wall Street Journal suggests a “comprehensive” US-Mexico strategy, which relies heavily on increased military-to-military cooperation. The Washington Post examines how some Mexican authorities are fearful of California’s upcoming vote on legalizing pot. And the Mexican Senate, in a 79-0 vote, has approved a bill that “would allow undocumented migrants to file complaints about abuses and receive medical treatment without being questioned about their immigration status.” Currently, says the AP, “Mexican law allows only people who are legally in the country to file such complaints with police and other agencies, and hospitals and other institutions are permitted to ask people for proof of legal migratory status.”

· On human rights worries in Peru, Just the Facts interviews Professor Jo-Marie Burt on a very controversial executive amnesty decree (1097) which has flown under the radar screen of the US-language media thus fear. Human rights advocates fear the decree could be a serious setback to years of judicial work against human rights abusers – including the conviction of ex-president Alberto Fujimori. In a column at NoticiasSer, Burt argues that the measure – which could end prosecution of rights violations occurring before 2003 – is part of a sustained campaign being launched against human rights defenders by Alan Garcia and the Peruvian government, which has increasingly returned to a “with us or against us” discourse of the 1980s and 1990s when dealing with human rights issues. WOLA has a statement on the matter, with Coletta Youngers, WOLA senior fellow, calling the decree a “get out jail free card” for those who “committed systematic atrocities against civilians, including massacres, torture, and forced disappearance.”

· Staying with controversies, the LA Times reports on that surrounding Georgetown University’s decision to bring former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe onto its faculty for a year as a “Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership” at its Washington DC-based School of Foreign Service.

· The AP here on the deployment of the Honduran military onto the streets of multiple Honduran cities to conduct anti-crime patrols following the massacre of 18 people earlier in the week in San Pedro Sula.

· IPS has a good report on the ongoing but little covered disputes between the Chilean government and Mapuche activists, 34 of whom have been on a hunger strike in Chilean prisons after being convicted of “terrorist arson, attempted homicide, bodily injury, invasion of property, threats and illicit association.” The individuals were tried under the country's polemical, Pinochet-era counter-terrorism law.

· In his Miami Herald column, Andres Oppenheimer comments on George Soros’s 100 million gift to Human Rights Watch this week, saying the donation could not have come at a better time. Latin America, Oppenheimer says, is paradigmatic of a global backtracking on human rights. “After reaching key agreements for the collective defense of democracy and human rights in the '90s, most countries in the region are now looking the other way at major violations by their neighbors,” says Oppenheimer. According to HRW’s Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco, “There is a double standard nowadays: many countries criticize rights violations of governments they don't like, but justify violations by countries they like.”

· And finally, this week’s Economist [full story here] provides an interpretative overview of the Latin American political and economic landscape as many in the region on the eve of bicentennial celebrations in Mexico. The piece notes the significant economic successes the region has experienced over the last decade. But, it maintains, consolidation of this success may require changes in both Latin America and its northern neighbor. Future Latin American prosperity, the Economist maintains, depends on Latin America “shedding its old chippiness, manifest in Mr [Hugo] Chávez’s obsession with being in the hated yanqui’s ‘backyard’” and the United States willingness to “build bridges, not walls” with their southern “cousins.” Shades of 21^st century “pan-Americanism” – a concept whose historical record seems disappointing, at best.

The Colombianization of Mexico?

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said cartels operating in Mexico are looking more and more like “insurgencies” struggling for control of Mexican territory. “We face an increasing threat from a well-organized network, drug-trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency,” Clinton said, responding to a reporter’s question after her talk.

Ms Clinton added another comparison in her speech, which the Obama administration has been careful to avoid thus far. Here’s the Washington Post, quoting (full Clinton quotes on the Mexico situation, from Boz):

“It's looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, where the narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country.”

The comparison, says the Post, signals “growing anxiety in the Obama administration about Mexico.” The LA Times, meanwhile, calls Ms. Clinton’s words “a striking shift in public comment by the Obama administration about the bloodshed that has cost 28,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006.” For its part, the Mexican government issued a quick response to the Secretary’s comments Wednesday afternoon. According to President Calderon’s national security adviser, Alejandro Poire, Mexico does not “share these findings, as there is a big difference between what Colombia faced and what Mexico is facing today.” Specifically, Poire said his country was acting with force and “in time” to save itself from a Colombia-like fate. If there was any similarity between the two cases, Poire continued, it lay north of the Rio Grande, rather than in Mexico or Colombia. Poire:

“Perhaps the most important similarity … is the extent to which organized crime and narcotics-trafficking organizations in both countries are fed by the enormous and gigantic U.S. demand for drugs.”

[More from BBC Mundo, examining the accuracy of the comparison – or lack thereof]

Beyond growing anxiety in the US government about the Mexico situation, observers are asking, why the Colombia comparison now? And it was Clinton herself who may have tipped the administration’s hand in her comments that followed yesterday’s speech. Clinton, again responding to the reporter following up on Mexico:

“I know that Plan Colombia was controversial. I was just in Colombia, and there were problems and there were mistakes, but it worked. And it was bipartisan, started, you know, in the Clinton administration, continued in the Bush administration…And we need to figure out what are the equivalents for Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.”

The AP has more in Spanish on the possibility of a second Plan Colombia. As does El Salvador’s El Faro, whose headline this morning reads “United States Seeks Plan Colombia for Central America and Mexico.” A new debate may have just begun.

Behind the headline:

· To be fair, Ms. Clinton did acknowledge Latin American concerns that it’s demand for drugs in the US which fueled Colombian violence during its peak and which today fuels violence in Mexico. Clinton, yet again:

“[T]hose drugs come up through Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, through Central America, southern Mexico, to the border, and we consume them. And those guns -- you know, those guns, legal and illegal, keep flooding, along with all of the mayhem -- it's not only guns; it's weapons, it's arsenals of all kinds that come south. So I feel a real sense of responsibility to do everything we can. And again, we're working hard to come up with approaches that will actually deliver.”

A new report from Mayors Against Illegal Guns highlights the full nature of Clinton’s words on US guns going South. And add to the mix the fact that the most recent drug kingpin arrested in Mexico, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka “La Barbie,” is a US born citizen, as the New York Times examines today, and the case for shared responsibility for drug war violence seems quite appropriate. Yet talk of a second Plan Colombia seems off-track with more structural discussions about drug decriminalization/legalization and alternative approaches to dealing with addiction the topic of most discussion amongst drug policy analysts – this is a topic the UNODC’s head, Antonio Maria Costa takes on in a provocative piece against legalization at the Guardian today.

· And wrapping up drug war stories this morning, reports from the AP that another Mexican mayor has been killed by suspected drug hitmen – the third such murder this month. Reuters says seven individuals, affiliated with the Zetas, have been detained in connection with the massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas. That killing is now being called “the worst massacre in the country's escalating drug war.” And in the LA Times, columnist Héctor Tobar says the aforementioned massacre should be provoking more outrage than it has, particularly within the US immigrant rights movement.

· From Haiti, the Miami Herald looks at that country’s presidential race. The paper says “ideology” has “fallen by the wayside” as each candidate attempts to present himself as the “unifer in a country with class, race and political divisions.”

· More on Venezuelan elections from the Real News, which talks with Venezuela scholar Greg Wilpert about the September 26 vote for a new legislature.

· Fidel Castro makes it two for two with what analysts see as two provocative – or at least out of the ordinary – statements from the former Cuban leader, both by way of the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who was recently in Havana. Yesterday, reports that Castro criticized Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. And today the story that Castro has lost faith in the Cuban communist economic model.

· The North American Congress on Latin America has its latest NACLA Report on the Americas out, examining how indigenous movements are confronting capitalism around the region. The articles seem to complement a few other recent pieces (Immanuel Wallerstein here and Raúl Zibechi here, for example) which highlight growing tension between the developmentalist agenda of many of the region’s left-leaning governments and the ecological concerns, forwarded by various social movements around the region. An excellent Al-Jazeera video report on mining conflicts in Ecuador is also worth a look.

· And, lastly, fascinating news from Costa Rica where the country’s Constitutional tribunal has declared access to the internet a fundamental human right. The state has an obligation to promote and guarantee universal citizen access to new technologies, the body’s magistrates ruled this week, adding that access to such technologies is today the basic means for fulfilling other rights, including the right to education, democratic participation, and free expression.

Latin American Economic Resilience, Explained

One of the most important stories of the last few years in Latin America has been the region’s economic resilience in the face of the world economic crisis. It’s been the anchor of broad-based “optimism” in much of the region – even euphoria, to quote parts of a recent Infolatam report. So on a day of slow news, it’s worth taking a closer look at the Economic Commission for Latin America’s (ECLA/CEPAL) recently released report on Latin America and the world economy, entitled “A crisis generated in the centre and a recovery driven by the emerging economies.” Here’s the breakdown.

First, the principal reason for the Latin America’s economic buoyancy? The respected UN commission maintains that an uptick in regional trade accounts for much of the region’s recent economic success (and, for that matter, the success of many other economies which have generally weathered the impacts of the financial crisis), with Latin America and the Caribbean’s “best performance” coming from its most prolific “commodity-exporting countries” (see Brazil, most notably). In those countries dependent on tourism and remittances (Central America and Mexico, for example), recovery has been notably slower.

Second, the engine behind basic commodity exports? ECLA says turn our eyes toward demand in China (and Chinese investment in Latin America), which has hardly missed a beat over the last two plus years. Many economic predictions say Chinese growth could continue its remarkable growth into the near future (the economy grew at 9.1% in 2009) – good news for Latin American exports, it would seem.

Third, the downside? There seem to be at least two serious issues here, perhaps more. First, with natural resources being the region’s “most dynamic exports over the past decade” Latin America has experienced what ECLA calls a “recommodification” of its regional export structure. ECLA:

“After falling from some 52% of total exports in the early 1980s to a low of 26.7% in the late 1990s, the share of raw materials has risen over the past decade to reach almost 40% of the total in the last two-year period (2008-2009) (see figure 7). This increase in the share of raw materials has taken place at the expense of medium-, high- and low technology manufacturing exports, all of which have grown by much less than in the 1990s. This is consistent with the reduced dynamism of engineering- and labour-intensive manufacturing exports.”

In ECLA speak: the “quality” of the region’s international trade has not improved over the last decade. And interestingly where manufactured or other “value added” goods have accounted for a larger share of exports (Mexico, for example), Chinese competition in their principal export market, the US, has been difficult to overcome.

The second downside to this all, according to ECLA, is the threat of 21st century dependency. Again here’s what the commission sees, potentially looming on the horizon, with shades of the 1960s:

“One major challenge is to prevent the growing trade between the two regions from reproducing and entrenching a centre-periphery trade pattern in which Asia (particularly China) emerges as a new centre and the countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region as a new periphery.”

Finally, any rays of hope? Yes, in fact, there still are a handful of bright spots which make the Latin America of today distinct from, say, the 1950s and 60s, when dependency debates were all the rage. One, the reliance on primary good exportation could be eased by the continuing growth of intraregional trade and financing. Decisions by MERCOSUR to improve its customs union and the potential of the Bank of the South are seen as hopeful recent measures by ECLA. Two, the continuing growth of South-South trade and integration has provided important market diversification and alternative financing. And three, there is the hope that the region’s governments will now place increased priority on public policies that “promote higher levels of innovation and endogenous development of technological capabilities.”

Staying with a few other economy notes:

• There are some signs that one of the Latin American economies which has struggled most of late, Venezuela, may have turned the corner in coming out of a recession which officially began in early 2009. CEPR has the details in a new report which maintains that the “Venezuelan economy grew by an estimated 5.2 percent in the second quarter of 2010, on an annualized basis.” According to the briefing’s summary, “although there are a number of analysts who are predicting that the Venezuelan economy is on the verge of inevitable (and long-anticipated) ruin, there is nothing in the recent data – or that of the last decade – to indicate that this is true.” To the contrary, “if the Venezuelan government maintains adequate levels of aggregate demand – including a commitment to strong counter-cyclical policies as necessary – the Venezuelan economy will grow, and the progress in employment, living standards, poverty reduction, and income equality that were seen during the previous expansion will continue.” For more on the case that economic recovery is beginning, see the Chavez-leaning venezuelanalysis.
• The Committee to Protect Journalists says that growing attacks on the Mexican press represent a “national crisis.” (Eight of the twenty-two journalists killed under the Calderon government’s watch have been murdered “in reprisal for their work.”) The committee calls on the Mexican federal government to take over the investigations of such murders at both the state and local level.
• Meanwhile, in Honduras, Reporters without Borders documents ongoing harassment and censorship of media outlets, particularly radio stations, critical of the Honduran government and the June 2009 coup d’etat. Reporters without Borders:

“These latest violations of the right to report news and information show that the post-coup political status quo continues to have a disastrous impact on media freedom… With nine journalists killed since the start of the year, Honduras continues to share joint status with Mexico as the western hemisphere’s two most dangerous countries for the news media.”

• More from Honduras, the site of mass murder Tuesday when gunmen entered a shoe factory in San Pedro Sula and killed 18 employees. According to the city’s assistant police commissioner, the murder could be linked to drug trafficking organizations. “Apparently the massacre was carried out as part of a turf battle between small-scale drug gangs, given that that neighbourhood has conflicts because of the presence of gang members,” the official said late Tuesday. The Americas Program has more with a piece that looks at the growing incursion of Mexican trafficking organizations in Honduras.
• And Honduras Culture and Politics has the details of a (re)new(ed) debate over the minimum wage in the country.
• In Venezuela, the recent death of hunger striker Franklin Brito has drawn attention to another group of Venezuelans protesting with the same tactics. This time it’s Venezuelan prisoners who are protesting squalid and frequently subhuman living conditions in their country’s penitentiaries. By way of the Economist: “According to the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory (OPV), an advocacy group, more than 43,000 prisoners are crammed into jails built for 15,000. Four-fifths of them have not even been sentenced.”
• A feature in Colombia’s Semana last week looks at Juan Manuel Santos’s ambitious plans for land reform, an initiative which some are heralding as “revolutionary,” should it be carried out successfully. In a country which has seen its internally displaced population triple in the last six years – from 1 million in 2004 to an eye-popping 4 million plus today, it’s not difficult to see why.
• And in Nicaragua, debating poverty. An independent study recently conducted by International Foundation for the Global Economic Challenge has confirmed that extreme poverty has fallen by 7.5 percentage points over the last five years (from 17.5% in 2005 to 9.7% today). President Daniel Ortega says the social programs implemented under his government deserve much of the credit. His fierce opposition, however, is asking, at what cost? They cite “environmental degradation caused by expansion of the agricultural frontier, and allegations that social programs are being financed by Venezuelan funds on a discretional basis and without transparent accountability,” as concerns. IPS and Nica Times with the story.
• Finally, two opinions on Mexico and the drug wars. The LA Times runs an editorial on the arrest of “La Barbie” today, arguing there is still much work to be done in the struggle with cartels. And in the Washington Post over the weekend, Jorge Castaneda and Héctor Aguilar Camín say California’s Prop. 19, proposing the legalization of pot in the state, could offer Mexico an exit, by way of precedent, from its bloody drug wars. Here’s the case:

“If our neighbors to the north pass Proposition 19, our government will have two new options: to proceed unilaterally with legalization -- with California but without Washington -- or to hold off, while exploiting California's move to more actively lobby the U.S. government for wider changes in drug policy. Either way, the initiative's passage will enhance Calderón's moral authority in pressing President Obama.”

Previewing Venezuelan Elections

With three weeks to go before legislative elections in Venezuela, 77% percent of Venezuelans say they plan to vote come September 26. Of those 77%, 34% say they will vote for the Chavez’s governing PSUV while 42% plan to cast their ballot for the opposition. Those numbers come from a poll released last week by Keller and Associates, based on survey data collected from August 7-23. The full survey results are available here and include other intriguing numbers for breaking down current Venezuelan politics. For example, the poll shows a body politic divided neatly into three almost even political parts – 30% of Venezuelans identifying themselves as chavistas, 33% as anti-chavistas, and 37% as neutral. [88% percent of self-identifying chavistas and 87% of self-identifying anti-chavistas say they will vote on the 26th]. Also of interest: Keller’s findings which suggest polarization fatigue. According to the survey, “achieving equilibrium between the opposition and the governing party” is seen as the principal objective of upcoming elections by a plurality of respondents, just barely edging out “controlling spending and corruption.”

The new numbers provide background for two reports on the elections this week. From Reuters, Frank Jack Daniel looks at insecurity –far and away the number one concern of Venezuelans heading into the legislative elections. The balanced report looks at the progress and shortcomings of country’s new National Police, focused on “community-focused policing.” The project “disproves opposition claims that Chavez and his lawmakers have done nothing to combat crime,” the government claims. In the Caracas neighborhood of Catia – the first to be patrolled by the new police force – murder rates have been halved, from 49.6 per 100,000 inhabitants to 17.6, according to Luis Fernandez, director of the National Police [Critics slam the government for lacking numbers which would detail national crime figures]. This is a “bright spot a generally grim situation,” says sociologist David Smilde, but one which still “could be derailed in any number of ways.” The consolidation of the new police force has thus far been slow, with its patrols still limited to Catia and the Caracas subway system.

And from the AP, a report suggesting disillusionment within Chavez’s traditional base of support – the urban poor. The piece cites the recent Consultores 21 poll which put Chavez’s approval rating at a seven-year low of 36% and “shrinking support” in Caracas barrios. Here’s the AP, with reporting that in some ways contradicts the Keller figures on turn-out:

“In about three dozen interviews with The Associated Press in Caracas' poorest slums, many people reeled off a litany of grievances including crime, inflation and lack of sewers and running water. Only a few of those who identified themselves as traditional Chavez supporters expressed an intent to vote against his party, but many suggested they are feeling so disillusioned that they might not bother to cast ballots.”

But, in all of this, it should be remembered that, due to redistricting, chavistas need not win a majority to hang on to their control of the legislature. According to some, the opposition may even be satisfied taking just one-third of the seats in the legislature come September 26. One last note to keep an eye on: the effect the new government-backed “cédula de buen vivir” has on electoral politics. Chavez rolled out the new initiative last week but the details of the program are still fuzzy, at best. More on this to come.

To other stories:

· In Mexico news, the US State Dept. said last Friday that the human rights situation in Mexico has improved, so much so that it is now willing to open the way for $36 million in previously frozen military aid. However, another $26 million, appropriated through a separate congressional budgeting process, remains frozen – hinting that concerns about transparent investigations into alleged human rights abuses remain. In fact, Human Rights Watch Mexico researcher, Nik Steinberg, quoted in the Times report, argues that “given the total impunity for military abuses and widespread cases of torture, none of the funds tied to human rights should be released.” The LA Times Saturday, meanwhile, suggests the Obama administration is still considering a successor plan to the three-year, $1.6 billion Mérida Initiative, begun in 2008 and set to expire next year.

· Continuing in Mexico, a third survivor of the Zeta migrant massacre in Tamaulipas has been identified (Also, see a fascinating IPS report on Tamaulipas media blackout). El Faro reports that Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes made the announcement this weekend -- the survivor was Salvadoran national. The LA Times looks at how the drug cartels are terrorizing the Mexican oil industry, kidnapping PEMEX employees and siphoning off Mexican crude to the tune of $50 million over just the first five months of 2010. PEMEX has also filed a suit against five U.S. companies to recover damages for stolen petroleum products worth more than $250 million, alleging the US firms knowingly bought stolen fuel. More on the arrest of “La Barbie” in the Washington Post Saturday. And an interesting report in the Miami Herald about the booming marijuana industry in Mexico. According to the paper, army eradication squads have been diverted by the drug war’s violence, allowing cannabis cultivation to rise by 35 percent last year. In fact, according to the State Dept, pot production is now higher than at any time in nearly two decades and has become the drug cartels new “cash cow.”

· In El Salvador, legislators approved a new and controversial law criminalizing gang membership. The new law makes illegal the “existence, support, and financing of gangs” while establishing sanctions against those who are gang members and collaborators. More from El Faro and the LA Times.

· In Peru, human rights advocates warn that a recent presidential decree which went into effect last week could result in freedom for ex-president Alberto Fujimori and his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos. (The latter was recently convicted by the Peruvian Supreme Court for selling guns to the FARC. At the same time he was a key US anti-drug asset – see Coletta Youngers at FPIF, for the full absurdity). The decree closes prosecution against those whose offenses took place prior to 2003 and those whose cases have gone on for over 36 months. Peruvian rights groups IDL and Aprodeh have denounced the decree.

· New poll numbers in Brazil show Dilma Rouseff breaking the 50% mark for the first time. Lula’s delfin continues to distance herself from José Serra who comes in at just 28% in the most recent Datafolha poll, suggesting the possibility of a first-round Dilma victory. Meanwhile, one of the campaign’s principal issues has been education, and the NY Times has a feature on that matter this weekend. The Times:

“Perhaps more than any other challenge facing Brazil today, education is a stumbling block in its bid to accelerate its economy and establish itself as one of the world’s most powerful nations, exposing a major weakness in its newfound armor.”

· Human Rights Watch’s Daniel Wilkinson had a great piece up at the New York Review of Books recently on the rise of the Cuban blogosphere, currently home to “more than one hundred unauthorized bloggers in Cuba, including at least two dozen who are openly critical of the government.” The biggest challenge for Cuban bloggers is “simply finding a way to get online,” Wilkinson argues. (The LA Times, in a weekend editorial, also comments on the lack of internet access on the island). Both pieces are timely as the island’s most famous blogger, Yoani Sanchez, continues to bring in international honors. After recently being named one of the 60 World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute, Sanchez also was awarded the Prince Claus Award this weekend.

· And finally today, congratulations to Human Rights Watch which was the recipient of a $100 million donation from George Soros. The gift was the largest single donation Soros has ever made and only the second $100 million philanthropic gift made by any single individual this year.