Making First-Time Homeowners in Cuba?

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

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

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

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

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

Today’s bullet points:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brazil Says US Policy is the Source of Rising Prices

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega censured the world’s so-called rich nations during international financial meetings in Washington, D.C. this weekend, arguing the United States and others in the Global North are trying to “export their way out of the difficult economic situations” by printing new money and keeping interest rates low. According to Mantega, such policies are driving up the prices of oil and food and disproportionately impacting the world’s poor. The New York Times describes the conflict:

“[Mantega’s] strong remarks highlight the challenges the United States and Europe face as they try to change their economic relationship with the developing world. In place of unsustainable borrowing to fuel consumption of imported goods, they would like to sell more goods and services to those countries. The problem is that developing nations, losing business from their best customers, hope to replace sales by increasing domestic consumption — selling to the same customers developed nations are trying to reach.”

There are a couple of principal matters at stake in this increasingly contentious battle. One is the issue of what the principal motor behind rising prices actually is. The US has continued to point its finger at some developing nations, most notably China, for suppressing the value of its currency in an attempt to increase exports. On this issue there had been a sense that Brazil and the US were on the same page – both critical of China’s “undervalued” currency. In fact, Mantega himself coined the term “currency war” last year. As recently as last week, the Brazilian finance minister said that “war” was still on.

But that issue took a back-seat in Washington this weekend as Brazil led an attack on the United States for continuing its expansive monetary policies. As the unofficial spokesman for the developing world, Brazil says such policies have set off speculative capital flows – so-called “hot money” – beginning in the financial center and moving outward. For its part, the US and others insist domestic demand in the developing world must be reined in at the same time.

It’s around this difference that the issue of capital controls enters. In an excellent op-ed in The Guardian last week, Kevin Gallagher and José Antonio Ocampo note some important changes in thinking at the IMF where, for perhaps the first time ever, the Fund recently embraced the idea of capital controls – albeit on a temporary and limited basis. Over the weekend, the Fund’s proposal on capital controls was rejected by Brazil, India, and other developing countries, which argued the IMF plan would still inadequately regulate the source of “hot money.” As Gallagher and Ocampo suggest, the IMF’s recommendation that capital controls be implemented only as a “last resort” and on a “non-discriminatory” basis seems to have particularly irked Brazil.

Other articles on these and similar topics: Triple Crisis on what’s next re: the “currency wars” and the BRICs; Andres Oppenheimer on fears of economic overheating across the region; Mary Anastasia O’Grady has the neoliberal talking points on Brazil’s economic situation; the Economist presents Colombia as an alternative model to Brazil re: the issue of hot money; and the BBC reports on World Bank chief Robert Zoellick’s grave warning to finance ministers in DC this weekend about the fragile nature of the global recovery.

This weekend’s bullet points:

· In Cuba, President Raul Castro, in a speech opening the the PCC’s Sixth Party Congress in Havana Saturday, proposed that Cuban politicians be limited to two five-year terms in office. The New York Times, quoting Castro:

“We have arrived at the conclusion that it is advisable to limit the fundamental political and state offices to a maximum period of two consecutive periods of five years.”

On economic reforms, the Times reports:

“[Castro] praised the expanded opportunities already extended to entrepreneurs; the government has granted 180,000 licenses for small businesses like coffee vendors, fast-food stands and house rentals, with tens of thousands more expected to be issued in the coming months. Yet he appeared to reject as “contrary to socialism” the loosening of rules on buying and selling homes, a change some analysts had speculated was coming.”

Delegates to the Congress continue to meet today before a closing session tomorrow. More from AP.

· In Tamaulipas, Mexican authorities say they have arrested the Zeta operative thought to be the “intellectual and material author” of many of the murders in and around the town of San Fernando. The Latin America Herald Tribune reports, saying Omar Martin Estrada Luna was arrested by Mexican marines over the weekend. The AP has more on the arrest – which appears to have taken place in Ciudad Victoria – noting that it came through the “international exchange of information.” The AP also notes that Tamaulipas state security chief, Brig. Gen. Ubaldo Ayala Tinoco, was relieved of his post by the state’s governor this weekend. Another military man, Capt. Rafael Lomeli Martinez, will take his place.

· More on the Tamaulipas killings themselves from the AP and New York Times. In an editorial this morning, the LA Times says the Tamaulipas massacre should be the impetus for judicial reform in Mexico. And a good video interview on the drug wars, with Institute for Policy Studies fellow and drug policy expert, Sanho Tree, on RT last week.

· Honduran President Porfirio Lobo is working his Supreme Court once again in an attempt to facilitate the return of ousted former President Mel Zelaya back to Honduras. Honduras’s return to the OAS hangs in the balance. AFP reports.

· Meanwhile, a second economic agreement between Honduran oligarch Miguel Facussé and an international body was cancelled last week because of apparent human rights worries. On Thursday, EDF Trading, a subsidiary of the French utility company EDF, announced it was backing out of a biogas project developed by Facussé’s Grupo Dinant corporation in the Aguan Valley. Earlier in the week, Facussé lost a $20 million loan from Germany’s state development bank, DEG, for similar reasons.

· BBC reports on a week of demonstrations in Bolivia that have brought striking teachers and healthcare workers to the streets of La Paz. Workers are demanding a 15% wage increase, which the government says it cannot afford after a recent wage hike of 10%. The BBC calls the protest, organized by the country’s central trade union body (COB), the “worst unrest” President Evo Morales has faced during his presidency. Protestors continue demanding direct talks with the president.

· El Tiempo reports on the recent – and quite entertaining – spat between Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and his backseat-driving former boss, Alvaro Uribe.

· AP highlights a new statement on Venezuela from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In its annual report, the IACHR condemns what the wire service calls a “growing climate growing climate of hostility against rights groups and non-governmental organizations” in Venezuela.

· BBC reports on last week’s sentencing of Argentina’s last military dictator, Reynaldo Bignone. Bignone, already serving a 25-year sentence for other human rights crimes, was sentenced to life in prison for authorizing additional murders and torture committed during the Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship.

· AP is the latest to highlight remaining human and labor rights concerns over the US-Colombia free trade pact. The New York Times, meanwhile, comes out in favor of the deal.

· The New York Times highlights what it calls an historic “about-face in American policy” as US attorneys in Florida seek the deportation of former Salvadoran General Eugenio Vides. Vides is accused of participating in human rights crimes during El Salvador’s civil war. The NYT: “The case against General Vides is hailed by human rights advocates as the first time a special human rights office at the Department of Homeland Security has brought immigration charges against a top-ranking foreign military commander.” Vides was once considered a close ally of the US in the fight against FMLN rebels. He has been living in retirement in South Florida since 1989.

· AFP reports on the upcoming exhumation of Salvador Allende’s body to determine once and for all whether or not the Chilean president took his own life in 1973 or was killed by Pinochet forces.

· Finally two opinions. Greg Grandin comments on Ollanta Humala’s first-round victory in Peru and prospects for round-two, at Al-Jazeera. And Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest has a very provocative piece on US-Brazil relations. His conclusion: “The major strategic interests of the US and Brazil are so closely aligned that cooperation between the two countries will be one of the building blocks of the new century.” The evidence for that conclusion – historical or otherwise – seems to me to be significantly lacking.

Cuban Communist Party Congress Set to Begin

The Cuban Communist Party (PCC) is expected to begin its sixth party congress tomorrow – its first in 14 years and an event at which the nature and scope of proposed economic reforms are expected to be unveiled.

IPS has a good look at some of the issues at play during the four-day congress. The news service says a 32-page document – the so-called “Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy” – has been discussed and debated in small meetings around the country by 7 million of Cuba’s 11.2 million people in recent months. As it now stands, the document calls for a greater private sector role in the economy, a major expansion of the cooperativism to include the industrial and service sectors, and potentially new rules on self-employment, first introduced during Cuba’s Special Period and expanded again last year. IPS also highlights the announced elimination of Cuba’s ration card system provides staple foods at subsidized prices. Arturo Lopez-Levy tells IPS the most important thing the PCC leadership could do is actively embrace certain notions of private property so as to move toward a “mixed” economic model.

AP notes that reforms have already allowed Cubans to petition for special licenses to work in 178 approved private enterprises. With those reforms, the country’s Labor Minister, Jose Barreiro tells AP 180,000 Cubans have started their own businesses. If that figure’s accurate, Cuba is, in AP’s words, “on pace to shatter its stated goal to issue a quarter of a million new licenses by the end of 2011.” Without going into specifics of what will be discussed during this weekend’s meetings, Barreiro says the Congress will make clear that socialism and private enterprise can be “compatible.”

Also to watch: who is selected as the PCC’s second secretary position. It’s widely believed that Raúl Castro will officially assume the post first secretary, long-held by his elder brother, Fidel. But figuring out who replaces Raúl in the second slot could be an indication of what a post-Castro future will look like, at least politically.

Interestingly, the beginning of the party congress comes during the 50^th anniversary of the US-led Bay of Pigs invasion. As proof that the history of that event is not yet passed, the US House and Senate decided to honor those Cuban exiles who participated in the invasion earlier this week. A handful of surviving vets were brought to Washington for the event.

For its part, the National Security Archive is marking the anniversary by suing the CIA over its failure to respond to a Freedom of Information Act petition requesting the agency release its full history of the Bay of Pigs operation. Peter Kornbluh, director of the the archive’s Cuba Documentation Project, says “fifty years after the invasion, it is well past time for the official history to be declassified and studied for the lessons it contains for the future of U.S.-Cuban relations.” Only one of five known Agency volumes documenting the “Official History” of the Bay of Pigs invasion has ever been released.

Today’s bullet points:

· A series of reports this morning report on the 16 San Fernando municipal police officers who have been detained by authorities in Tamaulipas for allegedly protecting the Zetas. The New York Times says “the arrests…suggest how it was possible for the gang to operate for months in San Fernando.” Amnesty International, in a statement released yesterday, urges a complete and thorough investigation into the links between criminal gangs and public officials. “It is vital that there are wider investigations to expose the collusion between security forces and criminal gangs in other areas of the country and prevent such grave abuses occurring again,” the human rights group says. Meanwhile, the body count from what is now a total of 26 graves around San Fernando rose again Thursday after the discovery of over 20 new corpses. The total number of bodies now stands at 145, according to AP. Investigators say at least 23 of the bodies were killed at least one month ago – that is to say, before the beginning of bus abductions on the “Highway of Death.” Meanwhile, Narco News reports on a major anti-drug war demonstration that is being organized in Mexico City for May 8. The call was made this week by a group that includes a number of Mexican religious figures and poet and journalist, Javier Sicilia.

· The LA Times reports on the latest revelations in the Project Gunrunner scandal. A congressional investigation into the ATF program revealed this week that when an Arizona gun dealer expressed worries that weapons were falling into the wrong hands in Mexico, he was encouraged by federal agents to continue selling.

· The Economist this week has another long and quite comprehensive report on organized crime and violence in Central America.

· Tim Rogers for TIME looks at the arrival of “white lobsters” on the shores of Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast – more commonly known as blocks of cocaine ditched by smugglers pursued being pursued by the Nicaraguan Coast Guard.

· Congressman Connie Mack (R-FL) is alleging the Obama administration turned down an offer from Colombia last fall to extradite Walid Makled to the US. He offers no specifics about what he is actually referring in making the allegation but writes about his outrage in a new press release. Meanwhile, Colombia’s Interior Minister German Vargas Lleras said yesterday that US agents are welcome to interview Makled before his extradition to Venezuela goes through. Apparently the interview process is already underway.

· AP reports that 66 pounds of cocaine were found on a bus transporting members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian militias to a demonstration yesterday.

· In Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski looks to have struck some sort of pact with Keiko Fujimori’s Fuerza 2011 party, although the details are unclear. La República reports. On the other side, sociologist Javier Diez Canseco, one of the most recognized figures on the Peruvian Left and a recently elected congressman for Humala’s Gana Perú party, speaks with Argentina’s Página 12 about round-two. Among other things, Diez Canseco mentions the importance of forging an alliance with Alejandro Toledo’s Perú Posible.

· Uruguay’s El País looks at the fallout from Frente Amplio’s decision to push for the annulment of a 1986 amnesty law – most notably the resignation from the Senate of longtime frenteamplista Senator and Tupamaro leader Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro.

· On the Duvalier case in Haiti, Human Rights Watch has released a new report calling for the former dictator to be prosecuted for rights abuses committed under his rule. Press release here, full report here, and AP coverage here.

· Finally, in international news, IPS looks at the “no strings attached” alternative aid/development model that the new India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Fund for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation is championing. Mercopress reports on the BRICS meeting in China. At Foreign Policy David Rothkopf has some interesting commentary on those meetings – a stark contrast, he says, to the images of the old world order embodied in this week’s contentious NATO meetings over the next steps in Libya. Complimentary to that, political scientist Steve Ellner, at In These Times, is the latest to highlight the United States’ waning influence in its former backyard.

Body Count Rises in Tamaulipas

The body count in a series of mass graves in Tamaulipas town of San Fernando rose again Wednesday. The discovery of more bodies brings the total death toll to 122, Tamaulipas Interior Secretary Morelos Canseco said Wednesday. Apparently a new grave was discovered late Tuesday, and investigations there are likely to continue in the coming days in what has become a most horrific story.

In its reporting, the AP says 16 San Fernando police officers have been arrested for allegedly “protecting members of the Zetas” and “covering up the kidnappings of bus passengers” traveling on Highway 101, connecting the Mexican town with the US border. An additional 17 individuals with apparent ties to the Zetas have also been arrested. Reports say at least a few have confessed to kidnapping and killing some of the missing bus passengers. The motive for the crimes, however, still seems far from clear.

Insight Crime, meanwhile, reports on interviews the Mexican newspaper El Universal has conducted with witnesses to some of the abductions of recent weeks on the “Highway of Death.” The video interviews can be watched here and are indeed frightening. As Insight notes, one witness recounts her bus being stopped by gunmen at a Highway 101 roadblock. The gunmen, the witness says, entered the bus, forced young women and girls off at gunpoint, stripped them naked, and raped them before driving away in their trucks with the women.

More from the BBC which reports on Tamaulipas as a “failed state within a State.”

In addition to the mass graves in Tamaulipas, Mexican investigators also discovered two other clandestine burial sites this week, one in the state of Sinaloa, near the border with Sonora, and another in the state of Sonora itself. Seven separate pits have now been uncovered at the Sinaloa site and at least a dozen bodies have already been removed there. Four bodies have been pulled from the Sonora site, near the border city of Nogales.

In Juarez Wednesday, the bodies of four men – last seen being detained by police officers in the city – were found in shallow desert graves outside the city.

And again Insight Crime has a map detailing the locations of all the “narcofosas” that have been discovered thus far around Mexico.

Finally, US Ambassador to Mexico Arturo Sarukhan responds to a Friday Dallas Morning News editorial supporting Congressman Michael McCaul’s (R-TX) attempt to designate six Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” Sarukhan rejects the proposal that cartels be designated as such, preferring to call them “very violent, well-financed transnational criminal organizations.” An editorial writer at the DMN has a counter-response in what could be just the beginning of a larger debate.

Today’s bullet points:

· Staying in Mexico, Reuters reports on how mass kidnappings of migrants appear to be a new source of financing for some Mexican cartels, particularly the Zetas. According to the Mexican National Human Rights Commission, at least 11,333 migrants were kidnapped in Mexico between April and September of 2010, many in large groups. Reuters says extortion fees over that six month period totaled more than a half million dollars -- ranging from $200 to $85,000 in more than 100 cases.

· IPS looks at protests led by women in Mexico City last week, denouncing growing worries about femicide, particularly in Mexico’s north.

· In Honduras, FNRP activist Gerardo Torres spoke in New York City Wednesday, arguing the current Honduran government continues to support and engage in violence against the political opposition. The Latin America News Dispatch covered Torres’s talk at Judson Memorial Church yesterday. LANR quotes Torres. “Of the ten journalists killed, seven were known members of the resistance. If this were any other country everybody would hear about this. When they kill ten journalists in Honduras, nobody knows.” Torres also spoke with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now yesterday morning.

· In Honduras’s Bajo Aguan – where conflicts between campesinos and planters have been particularly intense over the last year – El Heraldo reports that a German Bank has decided to freeze a $20 million loan to agro industrialist Miguel Facussé. Roger Pineda, a Facussé associate, blames an international campaign launched by human rights groups for the credit freeze. In the article, he specifically cites the Honduran rights group Cofadeh. After the German cuts, Facussé’s Dinant Corporation still maintains a $15 million credit line with the World Bank and $7 million with the Inter-American Development Bank.

· EFE and El Heraldo report on US South Com chief, Gen. Douglas Fraser’s trip to Honduras this week where matters of drug trafficking and regional security cooperation were to be discussed with the Honduran government. There is also some talk about possibly opening a US base in the country’s north, although I haven’t seen confirmation of that yet.

· In Colombia, the extradition orders for Venezuelan capo Walid Makled were finalized Wednesday. Colombian Interior Minister German Vargas said the formal extradition of Makled to Venezuela could occur within the next five days. AP and El Tiempo report. The Miami Herald continues to protest the decision in an editorial today.

· Reuters says the Venezuelan opposition has set a date of February 12 to elect its presidential candidate. The report lists some of the aspirants, including early frontrunner Henrique Capriles. The list also includes AD veteran Henry Ramos. However, I would imagine the Wikileaks revelation – reported by Spain’s El País this week – that Ramos openly requested financing and support from the US Embassy in Caracas in 2006 will hurt his chances.

· Another first lady looks to be running to succeed her husband, this time in the Dominican Republic. AP reports.

· Arturo Valenzuela, among others, testified about foreign assistance priorities before Congressman Connie Mack’s (R-FL) Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Wednesday. Webcast available here. GWU Professor Cynthia McClintock, meanwhile, gives a report back to WOLA on last Sunday’s first-round vote in Peru, which she observed. Audio available here.

· CS Monitor examines the role of China has played in Latin America’s recent economic boom.

· Slightly different takes from Estadao and Folha on China’s statements Tuesday about Brazil’s bid for a permanent UNSC seat. Read and compare for yourself the Brazil-China statement, alongside the Brazil-US statement of a few weeks ago.

· And in the LA Times, Marc Haefele argues the choice for Latin America is to side with Venezuela or Brazil on matters of press freedom. Argentina, he seems to suggest, is caught somewhere in the middle.

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.”

Uruguayan Senate Expected to Annul 1986 Amnesty Law

The Uruguayan Senate is expected to vote today to overturn a 1986 amnesty law which continues to shelter a number of state security officials from prosecution for human rights crimes committed during the country’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship. According to AP, human rights activists and members of the governing Frente Amplio coalition hope the annulment of will be made official by May 20, the country’s annual day of remembrance for the 174 individuals believed to have been killed by the military government. Deputy Felipe Michelini, however, says final approval could come as early as May 4.

Most in Uruguay’s two traditional parties (the Blancos and Colorados), as well as former military officers, oppose the annulment of the 1986 amnesty law. So too have many Uruguayans. During a 2009 vote in which former left-wing guerilla José Mujica – himself a victim of torture during the dictatorship – 52 percent of Uruguayans voted to uphold the amnesty law in a special plebiscite. In a plebiscite held 20 years prior ended with same result.

Neither former FA President Tabaré Vázquez nor current President José Mujica have been particularly vocal supporters of annulment during their respective presidencies, although it seems both men are now actively supporting the Senate’s annulment vote today. “Majorities aren't always correct in matters of human rights,” the AP quotes Vázquez as saying last month.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in a ruling in late March, also rendered the Expiry Law “ineffective” in the 1976 abduction and disappearance of Maria Claudia García Iruretagoyena de Gelman, daughter of Argentine poet Juan Gelman. Ariela Peralta, Deputy Director of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) and the chief lawyer involved in the case, called the IACHR decision “paradigmatic” for Uruguay in that it “means the end of a law that has stood in the way of truth and justice for 25 years.”

Frente Amplio, which holds a slim 16 to 14 majority in Uruguay’s upper house of parliament, says it has secured the necessary votes to approve the amnesty law’s annulment. One FA senator is expected to vote against the measure but Vice President Danilo Astori will be on-hand to case the decisive tie-breaking vote, sources indicate.

More from Uruguay’s right-leaning El País and left-leaning La República.

Today’s bullet points:

· In Peru, a June 5 second-round matchup between Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori appears to be a done deal. With just over 90 percent of votes counted, the country’s electoral commission says Humala has received 31.8% votes cast Sunday, compared to Fujimori’s 23.3%. PPK is in an increasingly distant third with 18.7% of the vote. Reports are much the same as yesterday, presenting a Humala-Fujimori match-up as a sort of “worst case” scenario. See, for example, US ambassador Dennis Jett in today’s Miami Herald or the TIME’s coverage of round-one results, which focuses on the high “negatives” both candidates get among different sectors of a deeply divided Peru. For its part, the Wall Street Journal highlights the worries of foreign investors, reporting that Peruivan stocks “fell into a tailspin Monday” (falling more than 3%) upon receiving news of Sunday’s first-round results. Analysts cite Humala’s call for a greater state role in the mining sector as their principal worry, although there appears to be some investor concern about political stability, should Ms. Fujimori be elected. The Miami Herald looks at human rights worries – a notion which, again, seems to ignore any notion of economic justice or social rights which, I would argue, cannot be so quickly dismissed. Interestingly, Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky, quoted in the Herald, predicts a major shift of Peruvian power brokers to the Fujimori camp in the coming weeks. “The vast bulk of the media is going to get behind Keiko and the private sector is going to get behind Keiko,” he says. “A good chunk of the political elite will get behind Keiko. The entire upper middle class of Lima will flock to Keiko.” In the Peruvian press, La República suggests there could be some talk of an alliance between Humala’s Gana Perú party and Alejandro Toledo’s Perú Posible, particularly around the issue human rights. It’s also probably worth watching what, if anything, Lima mayor, Susana Villarán – representative of a more urbane, upper-middle class progressivism – does ahead of round-two. Humala supported Villarán’s mayoral bid last year but Villarán has yet to return the endorsement. Leaving her polling place Sunday, the mayor only said she had voted so that “the errors of the past would not be repeated.” I’m also waiting to see a full electoral map from Sunday. For now, El Comercio suggests Humala won big in the South while Fujimori took the North. PPK looks to have won in Lima and Callao. More from IPS.

· Venezuela deported two suspected ELN rebels to Colombia for prosecution Monday. The AP calls the move a “positive message to other nations that want President Hugo Chavez to ensure suspected terrorists do not find haven in Venezuela.”

· AFP reports on the trilateral Chavez-Santos-Lobo meeting held in Cartagena Saturday, suggesting the encuentro was months in the making.

· AFP and IPS report on new figures released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which show Latin America to be the region of the world with the largest percentage increase in military spending last year. In real terms Lat Am expenditures grew by 5.8 percent compared with 5.2 percent for Africa, 2.8 for North America, 2.5 for the Middle East and 1.4 percent for Asia. The big spenders in the region are not, however, the countries you might expect if you read only the US press. Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru top the list. Interestingly, Venezuela – a country whose military purchases are frequently under intense scrutiny – saw its 210 military spending fall for a second consecutive year. The full report is available here.

· AP reports that US Ambassador to Ecuador, Heather Hodges, officially left her post in Quito today, after being declared persona non grata last week.

· AP says 16 more bodies were found in a series of mass graves in Tamaulipas, bringing the body count up to 88. The Wall Street Journal also reports on the massacre. The AP adds that at least one of the people abducted from various buses in Tamaulipas in recent weeks is a US citizen. The abductions are still believed to be linked to the massacre in some way, although it’s still unclear exactly how.

· Narco News with more on major anti-drug war protests that have cropped up around Mexico in recent weeks.

· Lula da Silva was in Mexico in recent dasys, apparently suggesting some sort of alliance between his country’s state oil giant, Petrobras and struggling Mexican state oil company, Pemex. Proceso reports.

· The Guardian reports that the last Cuban journalist in a Cuban prison has been released. Albert Santiago Du Bouchet Hernandez was freed last week Thursday and has left for Spain. Meanwhile, the Miami Herald talks with Cuban dissident Oscar Elías Biscet who calls for the Castro brothers to step down from power. As Phil Peters notes, Biscet says nothing – at least in the piece – about such a move being needed to “avoid a civil war” on the island, although that is the quite provocative way in which the Herald piece begins.

· Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, meanwhile, went free Friday. The National Security Archive’s Peter Kornbluh talks to Democracy Now yesterday morning about the El Paso court’s decision to acquit Posada Carriles of perjury charges, obstruction of justice, and immigration fraud.

· And the Latin Americanist Right has launched a new news blog: “Inter-American Security Watch.” It’s unclear from the site who the minds behind the new site are but there’s a rumor that it may be Roger Noriega. In any case, one of Noriega’s recent contributions is a piece yesterday on Chavez’s “proxy political wars.”

Humala Leads Round-One Vote Count, Fujimori in Second

With two-thirds of the ballots counted, Ollanta Humala looks like he will take round one in Peru. Reuters reports this morning that the official tally has Humala currently at 28.06% while Keiko Fujimori and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski battle it out for second with 22.49% and 22.29%, respectively. The two individuals who were frontrunners for much of the campaign, Alejandro Toledo and Luis Castaneda, look like they’ll finish in a distant fourth and fifth place, respectively, with vote percentages in the mid to low teens.

WOLA’s Jo-Marie Burt and Coletta Youngers, reporting from Peru, cite the monitoring group Transparencia which shows Humala’s lead being even larger (31.3%). Their numbers also show Fujimori more comfortably ahead of PPK (23.2% vs. 18.7%) for the second-place slot. La República confirms.

Meanwhile, La República, using early Datum numbers, shows Ollanta Humala’s Gana Party as coming out victorious in congressional balloting, getting somewhere around 40 seats in the National Congress compared to approx. 35 seats for Fujimori’s Fuerza 2011 party.

The commentary on the results is largely the same:

The New York Times’: “The results…suggest that symbols of Peru’s economic growth that are most evident to its urban moneyed class, like the construction boom that is reshaping Lima’s skyline mean little to the impoverished residents of the mountainous hinterland.”

Aldo Panfichi, a political scientist at the Catholic University in Lima, quoted in the Times coverage, says the growing disparities between Lima and the rest of the country explain the precipitous decline of former Lima mayor Luis Castaneda, in particular.

In the AP’s coverage, Political analyst Leon Trahtemberg says Sunday’s results “reflected the failure of President Garcia's ‘triumphalism’ in obtaining major foreign investment while “‘forgetting to attend to the poor.’”

Carlos Basombrio, quoted in the Washington Post over the weekend, says current President Alan García’s attempt to present Peru as a rising continental star is offensive to the third of Peruvians who still live in poverty. “Ordinary people take a look at their lives and, even if they have risen out of poverty, life is precarious and they feel offended.”

Some analysts and human rights groups are presenting a Humala vs. Fujimori second-round as a worst-case scenario come true. It was conservative author and recent Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa who, last week, referred to the then hypothetical match-up as a choice between "terminal cancer and AIDS." More than a few reports on the Peruvian elections in the US this weekend have reprinted the statement, doing nothing to help understand the Peruvian political landscape.

In fact, equating Humala with Fujimori seems to obscure more than illuminate. No matter their pasts, very real policy differences exist between the two – most notably on social and economic issues. If Humala’s rise over the last month has meant anything, it’s that inequality and regional disparities have grown, despite – or perhaps because – of an economic boom. As some have noted, Humala was the only candidate to make economic and social changes a central element of his campaign, advocating things like a means-tested pension plan for those over 65, improved access to healthcare for the poor, and higher taxes on foreign mining companies.

For those hardly radical positions, the value of the Peruvian sol and the country's main stock index both fell over the last two weeks.

In the weeks to come, there are also likely to emerge some significant differences between the two on things like drug policy and, yes, human rights. Interestingly, Humala was the only major candidate during the campaign to say he would not pardon Alberto Fujimori, and I don’t think we’ll see Keiko Fujimori changing her position on that anytime soon.

This weekend’s bullet points:

· In Colombia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos met Saturday. El Tiempo says 16 new accords were signed on issues ranging from counter-narcotics cooperation to health and infrastructure development. What’s received the most attention, however, was an unexpected addition to the meeting: Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. Colombia Reports suggests Chavez may soon come out in support of Honduras’s return to the OAS, under the condition that Manuel Zelaya be allowed to return home with immunity from prosecution. Apparently Lobo has agreed. We’ll see if he can now get the Honduran judiciary on board. AFP reports that OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza was quite pleased by the Saturday meeting and says more details should be announced in the coming days. Mel Zelaya also says he’s optimistic.

· Also on Honduras, the AP reports on new steps being taken to incorporate the military into the country’s anti-drug fight. The country’s Defense Minister, Marlon Pascua, made the announcement Friday, saying the air force and navy were being trained for their new operations.

· The US State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs has issued its 2010 “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.” All the reports should be available as PDFs here.

· In Mexico, additional bodies were found in mass graves in the state of Tamaulipas over the weekend, bringing the total count to 72. AP updates its reporting. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports from San Luis Potosí on rising numbers of children being killed in Mexico’s drug wars. BBC on the firing of Morelos state security chief, Gen. Gaston Menchaca Arias. Mexico’s Proceso reports on the US State Dept’s 2010 Mexico human rights report, available here, which argues the Mexican military is guilty of systematic rights violations.

· In Ecuador, the government’s plan to hold a popular referendum on May 7 is being strongly opposed by the country’s largest indigenous organization, CONAIE. More from AP.

· In Guatemala, the divorce of Sandra Torres and Alvaro Colom appears to be moving forward after a Guatemalan judge dismissed a suit seeking to block the separation. AP reports.

· The New York Times today looks at the growing presence of Chinese migrants and money in the small South American country of Suriname.

· The Wall Street Journal previews Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s travels to China this week. She’s in Beijing today, tomorrow, and Wednesday before a BRIC meeting on Thursday. WSJ: “In a briefing with reporters this week, a Brazilian government spokesman said Ms. Rousseff's trip to China is about ‘reciprocity’ between the two countries in terms of trade and investments in each other's economy. For instance, 84% of Brazilian exports to China are commodities, while 98% of Chinese sales to Brazil are manufactured goods, according to the Brazilian government.”

· Uruguayan President José Mujica has upped his lobbying efforts for Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur, penning an opinion piece in Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo over the weekend. The Paraguayan Congress continues to hold up Venezuela’s full incorporation into the regional bloc.

· Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post attacks Obama for not pressing Juan Manuel Santos to extradite Walid Makled to the US rather than Venezuela. Mark Weisbrot in The Guardian uses the Makled case, among other examples, to make an argument about Washington’s dwindling regional hegemony in South America.

· And finally, an El Paso court Friday acquitted Cuban former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles of all charges – perjury, obstruction of justice, and immigration fraud. AP reports on the decision and reactions to it, here and here.