Around Latin America

-The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would force the U.S. intelligence community to open up and share files related to the Argentine military dictatorship of 1976-1983. This is a big move both in revealing what the U.S.'s role in and knowledge of the "Dirty War" entailed, as well as helping hundreds of ongoing human rights cases in Argentina. The bill still has to pass the Senate and get Obama's signature.

-Last week, Lula removed general Maynard Marques de Santa Rosa from his position after the general had continued to criticize the newly-founded Truth Commission designed to investigate and detail human rights abuses during Brazil's 21-year military dictatorship. Santa Rosa is not the first military leader to oppose the Commission, and it's good news that Lula is not bowing down to criticisms from the military on this.

-Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti both may be out of office, but a strong grassroots movement in Honduras continues to protest against the government, calling for "constitutional reform and accountability for human rights abuses." Meanwhile, President Lobo Sosa replaced one coupist general with another as the head of the armed forces.

-The retrial date of a man accused of killing American nun and environmental activist Dorothy Stang has been set.

-As if the earthquake itself had not been devastating enough, a tsunami added to the damage of Haiti's January quake.

-Meanwhile, Chile continues to dig out from its 8.8-magnitude earthquake, the strongest to shake the country since the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, which at 9.5 was the strongest earthquake ever measured. Chile was not alone, yesterday, as a region in northern Argentina also was struck by a 6.1 earthquake.

-New reports suggest that Brazil's middle class continues to grow, but the enormous gap between the richest and poorest Brazilians has not improved.

-It's not terribly surprising, but Hugo Chavez has lashed out against an OAS report that severely rebukes Venezuela for documented human rights violations.

-In other unsurprising news,Carlos Menem continues to make a mockery of the Argentine political system.

-Alberto Fujimori's daughter will be allowed to wed in jail so that he may give away his daughter. This seems unremarkable, but is a powerful demonstration of the contrast between the democratic process in Peru and the authoritarian rule of Fujimori, who would not extend a similar courtesy to then-exiled-ex-president Alan Garcia when Garcia's father died.

-The Brazilian government has pulled a beer ad featuring Paris Hilton rubbing a can of beer all over herself. The governmental office on Women's Rights wanted the ad pulled because beer commercials in Brazil are not allowed to explicitly treat women as sexual objects (a law that would no doubt result in an overwhelming number of American beer commercials being withdrawn).

-A referendum on whether or not gay marriage should be legal could be on the ballots in Costa Rica by the end of the year.

-Former governor of Brasilia Jose Arruda remains in jail while the government proceeds to put together a case against Arruda, who is charged with multiple counts of corruption. This seems mundane, but given that Arruda remains in jail while prosecutors and politicians seriously deal with the charges is a major step in the right direction for a country that has often overlooked (and even encouraged) corruption within state, city, and federal governmental offices.

-Is there such a thing as "socially responsible mining," and is it sustainable? Incidents in El Salvador are suggesting that the answer to those two questions very well may be "no."

-Last week, the Christian Science Monitor filed a report pondering if the coup in Honduras last year could set up a model for a similar power-seizure in neighboring Nicaragua. However, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega insists a coup will not happen.

-Finally, the Catholic Church is suing Columbia Pictures over the unauthorized use of the Christ the Redeemer statue (and its destruction) in the movie 2012. No word if millions of people will be suing Columbia for continuing to allow Roland Emmerich to make movies.

"Unity Summit," Indeed

One thing you can say about international relations between Uribe's Colombia and Chavez's Venezuela: they're always interesting.

You know your relations have deteriorated when Raul Castro is asking "How is it possible that we're fighting at a summit intended to unite Latin American and Caribbean countries?," and he has a point. If Latin America is going to create a united organization separate from the U.S. and Canada, this is not a good way to start it.

Around Latin America

-The Honduran Supreme Court has appointed a judge to investigate a prosecutor's filed case against the military for its role in forcing Manuel Zelaya from the country on June 28. No warrants can be issued until the judge rules on the filing. That may sound nice, but given that this is the same Supreme Court that upheld the illegal removal of Zelaya, I don't think much will come from this. Still, if something is to happen, it has to start somewhere.

-Additionally, the Micheletti regime is apparently broke: "The Finance Minister for the de facto government, Gabriela Nuñez announced today that she does not currently have access to sufficient funds to pay government employees for January. It all boils down to cash flow. She said she has access to about 400 million lempiras, and needs a total of about 1,500 million lempiras. In addition, she noted that the government has run up large debts with suppliers, including 450 million lempiras for medical supplies, and a further 700 million lempiras owed to road construction and paving contractors." I don't know to what extent international reaction to the coup and reduction of financial support has played a role in this, but I suspect it must be at least somewhat significant, and nothing less than what the Micheletti has brought upon itself.

-Is Peru's economic star rising in Latin America? A road between Peru and Brazil and a growth in GDP of 9.8% last year indicate Peru may be in for a brighter future.

-Not as bright for Peru's future: illegal gold mining in Peru's Amazonian basin is causing long-term environmental damage : "it takes about five grams of mercury to extract a gram of gold. That mercury is usually tossed overboard, poisoning one of the world’s most biodiverse rain forests. And Borian’s form of mining is among the most benign. Illegal cartels with heavy equipment clear-cut and mine huge areas of virgin forest, alarming environmental activists."

-In response to Mexico City legalizing abortion, surrounding states are making it increasingly difficult to obtain an abortion in the rest of the country:

In response to a Mexican Supreme Court ruling in August 2008 upholding a Mexico City law permitting abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, 17 of 32 Mexican states have approved amendments to their constitutions declaring that life begins at conception and granting legal rights to fetuses, the Chicago Tribune reports. Veracruz, which in November 2009 became the most recent state to enact an antiabortion-rights amendment, has called on the federal government to consider adding a similar amendment to the national constitution.

It's hard to be surprised by this. Anti-choice sentiment stemming from conservative social values and Catholicism made any kind of response in Mexico likely. Still, this particular response from other state governments, and the pressure for a national law banning abortion, is very unfortunate. While each state can do what it wants (in the same way the D.F. can and did), it would be very bad of there were a national law enacted in Mexico.

-According to Venezuela's state-run National Electric Corporation, the country could be facing a major power outage nationwide in the next 3-4 months if water levels in the reservoirs continue to drop. Weather is funny, so there's no way of predicting accurately what will happen in that time period; still, power loss for an entire country would be tough to deal with politically, socially, or economically.

-While the recent massive rainfall in Brazil has led to the deaths of dozens, it may have the opposite effect in terms of agricultural production, as "Brazil’s coffee crop may beat the 48.48 million bag record this year, the country’s crop supply agency said in a report which also raised forecasts for the newly-begun soybean harvest."

-Finally, Lula is expected to decide soon which company he will contract for the a $4.4 billion U.S. dollar fighter jet order. In addition to Boeing (a U.S. company), France's Dassault and Sweden's Saab are in consideration. If Boeing is selected, it would create thousands of jobs for the struggling U.S. economy, a fact that didn't deter Republican Senator George LeMieux from doing all he could to damage U.S.-Brazil relations prior to the approval last week of Thomas Shannon as ambassador to Brazil.

Potential for Chavez' Decline

I think the single best way to turn people away from your revolution is to no longer be able to provide them electricity and water.

Seriously, Hugo Chavez needs to take care of this problem if he wants to stay in power for very long. If 40% of the country already opposes him, you don't think that consistent power outages would knock another 10-20% away and leave him with minority support?

Of course, he could always go full Mugabe and use thugs to stay in power despite destroying the country's infrastructure.

Around Latin America

-Brazil is going to resume construction on its third nuclear power plant this September. Construction had originally halted on Angra 3 in 1986 after environmental groups and media reports led to the shutdown. In explaining the return to construction 23 years later, state-run Electronuclear president said "Our nuclear program will not be as spectacular as those of China or India, but we will have a moderate and constant growth from Angra 3 on." The timing of the decision is strange - Brazil has been facing growing power concerns, but it has found ways to address those (see the next story), and the option for wind energy remains undeveloped in Brazil. However, the "from Angra 3 on" suggests Electronuclear plans to continue developing nuclear power plants beyond Angra 3, and while it may be nothing, I find the reference to China and India interesting. There's nothing to say this is the case, but I wonder if the decision to return to Angra 3 after 23 years is in part based on fears of falling too far behind other emerging world powers in Brazil's own quest to become a global leader.


-I commented last time that Brazil and Paraguay had reached an agreement on the power supplied by the Itaipu dam. Apparently, that deal is based on the agreement that Brazil will be paying triple what it had been paying to Paraguay for Paraguay's excess energy, as well as helping Paraguay develop infrastructure for the smaller country's own needs. As for who wins in this, I agree with Boz: both Lula and Lugo come away winners, especially Lugo.


-For those who get worked up in a froth over the sheer fact that illegal immigration can happen, there is this tragic reminder that many times, illegal immigration happens to reunite families. Not that the "family values" party would ever stop to consider the irreconcilability of fierce anti-immigration and so-called family values (which, to be fair, they clearly only spout for Machiavellian purposes without ever practicing what they preach).


-Apparently, it has gotten increasingly difficult to find a movie theater in Guyana over the past couple of decades (though I doubt the inability to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster " has in some way resulted in the decay today of the current moral fibre" of Guyana, as the author ponders).


-Greg found some mystifying data suggesting that Bolivians and Hondurans feared military coups the most in 2008, with 36% and 29% respectively believing their countries were heading towards coups. Strangely, Chile came in with 11%, as did Costa Rica, which doesn't even have a military.


-Greg also does an excellent, concise job in pointing out the ridiculous-ness of the charges from the left and the right against Obama in dealing with the Honduras crisis. To quote Greg:

It has become almost a political game to determine who is influencing Barack Obama with regard to Honduras. It can be tough to keep track.

• He is being influenced by Clintonites to support Zelaya.


• He is being influenced by Clintonites to oppose Zelaya.


• He is being influenced by The Empire to oppose Zelaya.


• He is plotting with the UN to support Zelaya.


• He was duped by Bush administration officials while in Russia to oppose Zelaya.

Heh. Indeed.


-An interesting new study says that climate change allowed the Incas to build Machu Picchu, as a receding treeline created more space for farming, cultivation, sculpting steppes, and building the roads that allowed them to reach Machu Picchu. I don't know if the science is accurate or not, but it's an interesting suggestion. (And I'd be worried about wingnuts in the U.S. pointing to this as evidence that the current environmental crisis we're facing is good, but that would require them to both look outside of the U.S. and acknowledge the genius of pre-Contact non-European civilizations, and that doesn't seem too likely).


-There's been a lot of hubbub and misunderstanding over Zelaya's stance on re-election (once again: he wasn't seeking it for himself, and it wasn't for this election; he was overthrown because he wanted a vote to determine whether the Honduran population could decide in the next election if they wanted to allow re-election or not). However, Alvaro Uribe continues to show far more anti-democratic tendencies than Zelaya. Uribe has postponed until September his decision on whether or not to run for re-re-election. No word yet on whether the military is planning on overthrowing him, too, or if the Republicans will be able to defend the coup in Colombia.


-Daniel Ortega could be taking the Uribe-path, too, as he is considering removing term limits in Nicaragua, conveniently enough so that he could possibly be re-elected. Sounds like it's time for another coup*.


-Speaking of Nicaragua, the total ban on abortion has had about all the effects one would expect, "endangering the lives of girls and women, denying them life-saving treatment, preventing health professionals from practicing effective medicine and contributing to an increase in maternal deaths across the country."


-While relatively under the radar, things are getting tense in the northern part of South America. FARC guerrillas were discovered having Swedish weapons, including surface-to-air missile launchers, weapons which Sweden said it sold to Venezuela. Sweden and Colombia are demanding an explanation, while Venezuela is saying that the allegations are lies meant to harm Venezuela and to justify Colombia's recent agreement to allow more U.S. troops in Colombia. And tonight Venezuela has cut diplomatic ties with Colombia over the allegations. While relations between Colombia and Venezuela are often full of bluster and posturing, this seems like it could become fairly serious.


-Finally, I've mentioned before the environmentally appalling conditions and devastating consequences of salmon farming in Chile. In spite of a claim that the Chilean government would try to reducethe use of antibiotics in salmon production, things continue to be depressingly grim, as a report has been issued that says that Chile uses more than 350 times the antibiotics in its fish that rival Norway uses in its salmon production. I fortunately don't eat salmon, but if I did, reports like this would convince me pretty quickly to abandon that habit.




*Sarcasm

Around Latin America

-It's been awhile since we did any updates on Honduras. Micheletti and Zelaya had agreed to negotiations with Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, and while things were looking good for awhile, they now appear to be breaking down. Zelaya has vowed to cross the border back into his home country by foot if a resolution is not agreed upon by the end of this week. Meanwhile, the U.S. is ratcheting up its rhetoric, telling Micheletti that, if Zelaya is not restored to power, the U.S. will impose "severe sanctions" on Honduras. Some are critical of the Obama administration for waiting this long to take such a strong stance, but it strikes me as the right approach: let the negotiations begin, with mediation by a smart and respected diplomat, and if/when Micheletti refuses to back down from the coup, raise the specter of fierce economic reprisals if Zelaya's (democratically-elected) administration is not returned to power.

-American interrogators apparently were not the only government agents present during interrogations in Guantanamo. According to one report, Chinese agents also had unsupervised access to a number of Uighur detainees held in Cuba after September 11th. This isn't terribly surprising, given China's efforts to crack down on Uighur separatism and general mobilization, a case that's resurfaced recently as massive protests and clashes recently erupted between Uighurs, Chinese, and the state police in western China, resulting in the deaths of 100s. Equally unsurprising is that Chinese agents were allowed into Guantanamo to interrogate prisoners, even while Congressional representatives were denied access to examine conditions. Still, the Chinese-U.S. collaboration in the "war on terror" is an interesting and unexplored topic, and if this story is any indicator, could mark some rather dark interactions between the two countries, in Cuba and elsewhere.

-I've commented before on the close ties between Colombian paramilitaries and Alvaro Uribe's administration, as well as the impossibility of attaining peace in Colombia until the government cracks down as hard on paramilitaries as on the FARC. Lillie points to one more way in which the government is trying to cover up paramilitary violence, as well as offering some fascinating news I had not heard about the search in Brazil for the bodies of guerrillas who were killed and "disappeared" in the Araguaia region in the early 1970s (as well as the controversy of having the military look for the very bodies it is accused of having executed and dumped.)

-Speaking of the FARC, Colombia is claiming it has evidence that the FARC financially sponsored Rafael Correa's election. Correa insists he did not know about it, and I imagine he didn't. Beyond that, I think Boz's analysis of what Correa needs to do is pretty spot-on.

-In a very noble cultural move, Cuba is restoring the 120-meter tall mural painted onto a mountainside in the 1950s by muralist Leovigidio Gonzalez. The restoration will weather-proof the mural, and the project will incorporate the labor of local campesinos, helping jobs in the region.

-I couldn't agree more with Evo Morales: Bolivians (and Brazilians, and Argentines, and Ecuadorans, and people in the United States, and etc...) need to be more aware of the role of dictatorships in Bolivia (and Latin America) in the past, the causes of their rises to power and the effects of their regimes, the lessons (positive and negative) that civilian governments have learned, and the ways in which repression continue to manifest themselves in the world today.

-Brazil is outraged over Britain's decision to quite literally dump its shit on Brazil:

Brazilian police are investigating after 64 containers with more than 1,400 tonnes of hazardous UK waste were found in three of the country's ports.

The authorities say that among the material which was brought in illegally they discovered batteries, syringes, condoms and nappies.

Since the initial discovery, another 25 containers with hospital waste were found, also apparently from England.

The dumps happened in Santos (one of Brazil's most important ports, located in Sao Paulo) and in Rio Grande do Sul. To add insult to insult, one of the bins was filled with dirty toys with a note saying to wash the toys before giving them to "poor Brazilian children." Britain has promised to take "immediate steps," but it's a pretty embarrassing and despicable action nonetheless.

-Also in Brazil, in the "lack of sensitivity" department:

Jobless people seeking information about their benefits on the Brazilian Labor Ministry's Web site were forced to type in passwords such as "bum" and "shameless."
Labor Minister Carlos Lupi is apologizing for the situation - and he blames a private company that created the site's security system.

The government had previously decided against renewing the company's contract, prompting the speculation that the website gaffe was a revenge-prank on the part of the company.

-In one final bit on Brazil, according to a new academic study, Brazil is the global leader in a dubious category: soccer-related deaths. The report says that 42 people have been killed in the last 10 years, putting Brazil ahead of Italy and Argentina.

-In Venezuela, former Defense Minister Italo del Valle Alliegro has been criminally charged for his role in ordering the repression of protests that resulted in the deaths of hundreds and probably thousands of people dead in 1989. The protests, known as "Caracazo," were in response to government-imposed price hikes, and as the article points out, the failure to punish any authorities for the excessive force in response has been a dark stain on the human rights record of Venezuela since 1989.

-In good news on the (non-Dirty War) human rights front, Argentine courts have ordered a reopening of the investigation into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish organization that killed 85 and injured over 300. Recent developments have included beginning a more thorough and nuanced investigation than the one that simply said Iran was to blame, and has allowed the re-admission of evidence that had been acquired prior to the date that a judge had bribed a suspect to falsely blame the police for the bombing.

-On a more light-hearted note for Argentina, and in what is a very interesting case of how individual cultures can force international companies to adapt, Pepsi is now changing its logo to read "Pecsi" in Argentina, making the spelling match the pronunciation Argentines have given to the soda for years.

-There are many reasons why Alberto Fujimori is a disgusting human being, and his conviction today for embezzlement only adds to that long list. Still, to get at the essence of Fujimori's evil, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better quotation that sums it all up than the one Fujimori issued today: "I only accept the deeds; I accept neither the legal responsibility, nor the punishment nor the civil reparations." (h/t to Lillie).

-If anybody has any information on the apparent arson of the Ministry of Health in Guyana, it could be financially useful: president Bharrat Jagdeo is offering a $25 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpretrators.

-Finally, as Erik can no doubt attest, traveling in Costa Rica (and in many parts of the world) can be quite an adventure, particularly outside of the cities. This interesting (and kind of frightening) display shows the poor condition of many bridges throughout Costa Rica, from San Jose to the rural areas. Having lived there for awhile several years ago, it looks like travel has only gotten more "adventurous."

"It began with a simple handshake..."

Now THIS is breaking news:

Caracas-on-Potomac, DC—Moving to consolidate his recent annexation of the government of the United States, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced today that the country would be renamed the “United States of Chávez” and that select groups of Chávezian citizens would be invited to participate in “training programs” designed to make them happier and more productive members of the new society.

Read the rest of what has to be one of the best bits of satire of the media, the right, teabaggers, and others that I've seen in years - and all while writing about Latin American politics and history!

Historical Image of the Day

Attack on Richard Nixon's vehicle, Venezuela, 1958

Lula and Obama Meet

Lula and Obama met this weekend in what was Obama's first meeting with a Latin American leader, demonstrating how Brazil has really emerged as a global power , which also indicates that the U.S. is going to have to (and seems willing to) deal with Brazil and Latin America in general on much more balanced (if not perfectly equal) footing than in the past. Publicly, the discussions were, as Boz says, no surprise - Doha, energy, the global economy. I am curious if/how the Venezuela talks played out privately - I suspect if there is anything, we'll only know more later. Overall, the meeting seemed to have went well, and just the overall demeanor and relationship between the two men already is just another reminder of what a radical change and galactic-sized improvement we are witnessing between Bush's administration and Obama's when it comes to foreign policy and representing the United States globally. It's really too early to say much about the consequences of the meeting, but it's definitely a good step, and will be interesting to watch Obama's, Lula's, and the rest of Latin America's actions leading up to the Summit of the Americas in April.

Ecuador Defaults on Its Loans - What Does It Mean for South America?

Back in October, I began wondering if relations between Ecuador and Brazil were not starting to head south. Dissatisfied with the work that Odebrecht, one of the largest construction firms in Brazil, had performed on dams in Ecuador, Correa expelled the company and siezed control of the dams in question. This was a particularly inflammatory action because Lula's government, ever trusting on the power of negotiations, had made strong efforts to work out a settlement between Odebrecht and Ecuador, and Ecuador, which gave hints that it may be willing to settle, rather quickly reversed course. In response, Brazil suspended a trade mission to Ecuador, and the sale of 24 Super Tucano jets (from Brazil) was frozen. Relations on both sides were harmed, as Brazil and Ecuador both had financial and infrastructural benefits they could have co-benefited from before things got tense.

Well, if things were tense before, they will get ugly now, as Ecuador has defaulted on its loans. As Boz pointed out, when Ecuador was trying to get support in the region for its default, Brazil was less than welcome to working with Ecuador on the issue, in part because of Correa's somewhat abrasive attitude towards Brazil back in September and October. The default only worsens things, as Odebrecht was not the only matter at issue back in October; Brazil's development bank (the BNDES) had invested $243 million in aid to help Ecuador, and the expulsion of Odebrecht and the default put that money at risk for Brazil. Brazil has already announced that it will no longer lend money to Ecuador, given its history of defaulting (in addition to this year, Ecuador also defaulted on loans in 1999, as well as in the 1980s.

Nor is Brazil the only one at risk here. By defaulting, Venezuela, one of Correa's creditors, is now going to probably have to swallow at least $400 million in bonds, at a time when the economy in Venezuela is already threatened by the low price of oil right now.

Right now, it's still pretty difficult to really come down on one side or another in this issue. I certainly don't think Ecuador "defaults out of spite." The default on loans is something Correa has been threatening since he ran for president in 2006. What is more, he's not some economic idiot or an uninformed ideologue - he has a PhD in international economics. That said, I think his move has a very real chance of seriously harming Ecuador's relations with its neighbors. Defaulting on IMF and World Bank loans that impose neoliberal economics is one thing; defaulting to friendly nations like Brazil and Venezuela, who can relate to the experience of onerous debts and who are providing a far more friendly, regional alternative to the IMF and World Bank is a very different matter. And Ecuador certainly isn't defaulting due to a lack of funds - it apparently has $5.65 billion in cash reserves right now, so this isn't a case of "we simply can't afford it." It definitely seems, as Ishmael put it, that "this is an ideological dispute more than a strictly economic one (in as much as you can separate the two)." And I'm not totally unsympathetic to Correa's desire to wipe the slate clean from debts established by previous administrations, and try to lead economic reform from within.

At the same time, Brazil and Venezuela certainly aren't "predatory creditors." Those two countries have been at the forefront in helping South America as a whole become a stronger economic bloc, breaking some of its economic dependence on trade deals and loans with the U.S. and Europe and strengthening the region's own economic power in the global economy (as well as helping to improve infrastructure and social programs). However, as two growing regional and, in the case of Brazil, global economic powers, they are experiencing one of the downsides that comes with a global economic presence: not all investments pay off in the end. This may not be the first time Brazil has had a debtor default in loans to Brazil, but I certainly can't think of a previous instance, and certainly not one with this magnitude both economically and geopolitically.

I think overall, everybody is losing in this. Correa's choice may be right for his country financially, but his general abrasiveness is really alienating and is putting Ecuador more and more in a corner by itself. What is more, Ecuador simply does not have all of the capabilities to establish major infrastructural development and independence on its own right now, and relies on its neighbors for basic construction and military needs (as the Odebrecht case and its fallout demonstrated), so the temporary economic benefits it may gain from defaulting are still mixed. And Brazil and Venezuela certainly are losing out: after trying to help a neighbor with a similar political ideology (i.e., more "left" than "right"), they are left swallowing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, just as the global economy gets weaker. They really have no incentive to help out Ecuador in the future, and I wouldn't blame them for refusing to do so. I wouldn't say that Ecuador's regional relations are irreparably damaged, but given this default and (in the case of Brazil) previous contentions with its neighbors, Ecuador is looking pretty isolated right now.

The New York Times' Disgraceful Role as a Bush Mouthpiece against Venezuela

Rob links to Glenn Greenwald's great post on the New York Times' disgraceful editorial supporting the coup of Hugo Chavez back in 2002. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Times failed as miserably as any news agency, "legitimate" or not, could, totally pushing the Bush line on the coup even while contradicting itself repeatedly within its own editorial:

The Times -- in the very first line -- mimicked the claim of the Bush administration that Chavez "resigned," even though, several paragraphs later, they expressly acknowledged that Chavez "was compelled to resign by military commanders" (the definition of a "coup"). Further mimicking the administration, the Times perversely celebrated the coup as safeguarding "Venezuelan democracy" ("Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator"), even though the coup deposed someone whom the Times Editorial itself said "was elected president in 1998" and -- again using the Times' own language -- "handed power to" an unelected, pro-American "respected business leader, Pedro Carmona," who quickly proceeded to dissolve the democratically elected National Assembly, the Supreme Court and other key institutions.
Worse still, the Times Editorial mindlessly spouted the administration's claim that "Washington never publicly demonized Mr. Chávez" and "his removal was a purely Venezuelan affair." Yet less than a week later, the Times itself was compelled to report that the Bush administration "acknowledged today that a senior administration official [Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich] was in contact with Mr. Chávez's successor on the very day he took over"' -- a disclosure which, as the Times put it with great understatement, "raised questions as to whether Reich or other officials were stage-managing the takeover by Mr. Carmona."[all bolds from the original post]

I was in Costa Rica at the time, and the media there did as great a job as the U.S. media didn't. It was immediately clear that the U.S. was supporting the overthrow of Chavez and was in a large part behind the coup, as it had been in Chile in 1973, and as it had been prepared for in Brazil in 1964, in addition to dozens of other cases throughout the world in the 20th century. The Costa Rican media, which was neither pro- nor anti-Chavez, was rightfully condemning of the U.S. for overthrowing a leader who (at the time) had been popularly elected only four years before. Venezuela occupied the front pages and lead stories in the newspapers and television news for the next four days (a rarity in Costa Rica), and the media (again correctly) lauded the return of Venezuela's popularly elected leader. It covered things fairly and pointed out issues such as the U.S.'s hypocrisy in claiming to want "democracy" in Afghanistan (then just getting rid of the Taliban in government) while undermining democracy in Venezuela. In short, the Costa Rican media was a way better guage of the happenings in Venezuela in April of 2002 than the Times, which was little more than a Pravda-style mouthpiece for the Bush administration's efforts to legitimize the coup (and, by implication, its involvement in it).

There are two other aspects worth pointing out about the Times' article and what it signifies. First, April 2002 was still only 7 months after September 11, 2001, and the Times' open failure to question any aspect of the Bush administration in regards to Venezuela I think really gets at something we've lost sight of: how much good will, not just internationally but domestically and within the media, even the New York Times, now one of the wingnuts' main targets of the "liberally biased media," had towards Bush, and as a result, how much he really pissed away with the Iraq War and subsequent disasters climatic, economic, and otherwise.

Secondly, Venezuela really is the first example of the simultaneously arrogant and blockheaded foreign policy decisions that have dominated Bush's administration. When the U.S. was barely beginning to rattle the sabre for Iraq, Bush was already pushing a foreign policy with Venezuela (with whom the U.S. had had cordial relations for the first two year of Chavez's administration) that threw dialog aside and sought only to put in leaders that would be totally subservient to the U.S. and Bush's vision of free-market economic policies that perpetuated the gross inequalities in Latin America.

In short, before we went in and knocked out Hussein and and declared "Mission: Accomplished," only to find the Iraqi people further divided, we were already blockheadedly trying to overthrow popularly elected leaders, thinking the Venezuelan people would just go along with the coup and the U.S. could get what it wanted (in this case, oil and a free-market servant). But it didn't work out that way. Instead, Chavez only gained in popularity, bolstered by the fact that he had withstood a U.S.-supported coup, and the pie-in-the-face that his return represented for Bush quite probably gave Chavez a staying power in Venezuela that he arguably might not have had if it weren't for Bush's quick embrace of the coup.

And the Bush administration could have learned from this, just as it could have learned from the case of North Korea, when it lumped that country in with the "Axis of Evil," only to end up having North Korea develop a nuclear power plant in order to be prepared for a possible U.S. invasion. But instead of learning from their mistakes and trying to consider what other countries might actually want for themselves or considering the power of dialogue, the Bush administration continued down the same path of bullying, only to lose more "legitimacy" and heft in the world and to give further popularity to the very people it opposed simply by openly opposing those leaders. Iraq wasn't the first example of the sheer wrong-headedness and at times sublime idiocy of the Bush administration in terms of policy and planning; it was just one of the brightest stars in what has turned into a constellation of disasters. And, in the "united we stand" mist immediately following 9/11, the Bush administration didn't just find its mouthpieces on Fox News or talk radio; it found them throughout the media, including the New York Times. And for that, we should not let the Times or others escape the burden of guilt.

Discussing Latin America, Part 2 - The role of iconic figures in political party conflict

Mr. Trend raises an important question in  Part 1 of this post related to understanding political parties in a number of Latin American countries.

Among the political parties mentioned in the previous post, I think there are some important distinctions that need to be made in how the symbolic figure becomes adopted. Among the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the FMLN in El Salvador, both parties were attempting to recover a national history that was somewhat lost or hidden through the iconic use of Nicaragua's Augusto César Sandino and El Salvador's Farabundo Martí. What sets these two parties apart from others is that the importance of these two individuals as national figures is still hotly contested in both countries (at least I think this is the case in El Salvador). Whether or not Sandino was an anti-imperialist hero, or a criminal lunatic is still very much a debate in Nicaragua. 

Both the Sandinistas and the FMLN were in some sense attempting to reinterpret the historical narrative in their respective countries, which is much different than say the use of José Martí in Cuba or Bolívar in Venezuela. My sense of the use of José Martí and Bolívar is that these two figures were, and remain so, national icons used to give nationalist legitimacy to a movement. There was not a conflict over the importance of these two figures to each country's national history as exists in Nicaragua and El Salvador. 

Mr. Trend suggests that Bolívar does not belong in this category, but I think it is an interesting case that does belong here. There has been an attempt by Hugo Chávez to reinterpret Bolívar as an anti-imperialist hero, and sort of whitewash his more unsavory characteristics. What is going on there is somewhat similar to how the Sandinistas chose to present Sandino during the Nicaraguan Revolution. Sandino's thought was collected in ways by Sandinista leaders to present a very narrow portrait of the man that would serve the Revolution's interests. Chávez is doing something similar by issuing collections of Bolívar's thought that highlight his thought in ways that serve the Bolivarian Revolution, but ignore some of the more anti-democratic and aristocratic tendencies of Bolívar. However, this use of Bolívar is not quite comparable to Nicaragua and El Salvador, because both sides in Venezuela accept Bolívar as a national icon. Anti-chavistas oppose Chávez' use of Bolívar for political ends, but not his place in Venezuelan history. 

As for Perón, I'm not sure I would lump his Justicialist Party (PJ) in with the other cases, since it was Perón himself who formed the party. There is a fairly decent sized literature in political science on political parties formed around charismatic individuals (which maybe I will delve into in future posts?) that sets these types of parties apart from others on a number of organizational and ideological dimensions. I am somewhat familiar with the effect his leadership had on the future of the party, but I'm not familiar with the current status of Peron as a myth or national icon in Argentina. Does it cross party lines, or is he more seen as a symbol to supporters of the PJ rather than to all Argentines?

Thinking about parties formed around charismatic individuals, my sense is that we would be better off comparing Perón to Chávez, and possibly to Fidel Castro in Cuba and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and his foundation of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in Mexico. This comparison would be somewhat difficult because we haven't been able to observe a post-Chávez party or a post-Castro party, but the consequences for these political parties is likely to be distinct due to their foundational characteristics in ways unlike the FMLN or the Sandinistas.

In short, what I am suggesting from all of this in response to Mr. Trend's question is some form of conceptual typology to look at the consequences particular individuals have on political parties. I think we could look at these parties along three lines:

1) The use of contested national symbols (i.e. Farabundo Martí and Sandino)

2)The use of accepted national symbols (i.e. José Martí and Bolívar)

3)Parties formed around charismatic individuals (i.e. Perón, Chávez, Castro)

This typology allows for one party to fit in multiple categories, but I think it makes more sense to look at these parties in this way, rather than in a sort of holistic comparison of political parties across countries. 

Bolivia's Situation Deteriorating, Threatening to Affect South America from the Caribbean to Tierra del Fuego

Events in Bolivia this week have gotten virtually no attention in the U.S. (due in no small part because people don't care, as well as the fact that the media has had the presidential campaigns, the non-Chilean 9/11 anniversary, and now Hurricane Ike to discuss). However, in the last few days, things have escalated to a point that Bolivia's internal crisis between Morales and the highlands vs. the four lowlands regions are threatening to blow up into a transnational diplomatic crisis.

In summary, despite Morales winning the referendum on his administration in early August, the situation has only worsened between his administration and the four eastern lowlands regions that have wanted virtual economic and political secession. As Erik accurately surmised, the situation has come to a standstill, with neither side gaining the upper hand as violence only escalates. Confrontations between rural workers (often of indigenous backgrounds) and the opposition (often of "whiter" and wealthier backgrounds) have escalated, with 8 deaths (seven of them campesinos who were surrounded and attacked) and 34 injuries yesterday alone. Morales also expelled the U.S. ambassador from Bolivia on Wednesday, claiming that the ambassador is supporting the four regions in an effort to undermine Morales's leadership. While the U.S. State Department called such claims "baseless," there is absolutely no more reason to trust the U.S. than there is Morales, particularly given our history of having the highest levels of the executive branch undermining leaders we didn't like in the past (Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973 [hat-tip to Randy], Argentina in 1976, Nicaragua in the 1980s, or Venezuela in 2002).

However, unlike previous times of conflict in Bolivia, this time, the threat of hemispheric involvement is greater. Already, as a sign of "solidarity," Hugo Chavez has expelled the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela. While this is the story that's getting the most press in the U.S., though, in many ways it's the least important for the rest of the South American continent. In addition to the violence, opponents of Morales blew up one of the major pipelines between Bolivia and Brazil. The attack on the pipeline had an immediate effect on Brazil, as Brazil gets 25% of its daily fuel from Bolivia through this pipeline.

Although the service was restored relatively quickly, Brazil and Bolivia's other neighbors are finding it more difficult not to get involved. Marco Aurelio Garcia, Brazil's special assessor for International Affairs for the President, said yesterday that Brazil "will not tolerate any rupture of institutional order in Bolivia," saying that Morales's overthrow would cause enormous problems for the entire continent. And Lula spoke with Argentine president Kristina Fernandez Kirchner, Chile's Michele Bachelet, Morales, and Chavez yesterday, in an effort to (as the article puts it) "mobilize the countries of the region - especially the Group of Friends of Bolivia, formed by Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina - so that they can serve as an intermediary channel between the government and the opposition in Bolivia."

These actions and statements are far from empty international bluster (even Chavez is probably not making empty threats when he promised to aide an armed resistance movement if the democratically-elected Morales were to be overthrown) that will not be backed up by action. It has been a very long time since the governments of so many South American countries were in such quick contact to try to aide another country (and the last time they were in contact, it was to root out and kill subversives in Operation Condor). The fact that Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela are all clearly concerned and not afraid to enter into the equation to make sure Bolivia's institutions remain in tact reveals just how severe the situation has gotten. Certainly, I hope things will get better, but like Erik back in August, I just don't see how they can right now, given how much of a stalemate it's become between Bolivia and the lowlands regions.

Would an Obama Presidency Lead to More Dialogue with Chavez?

Last week, Erwin C. at the Latin Americanist asked whether an Obama presidency would be bad for Chavez. It's actually an important question: Chavez did get elected in 1998, but really came to global prominence after Bush's administration supported (perhaps materially) the failed coup attempt against Chavez in 2002; since then, few can contest the fact that Chavez's role has grown thanks to his rhetorical and ideological role in challenging Bush and the American empire every chance he gets. But Chavez has made it clear that, while he does not like Bush, he does not dislike the U.S., either, a fact reinforced by the fact that, from 1998 to 2002, Chavez's anti-U.S.-administration (and this is a very important distinction from "anti-U.S." as an attack on American citizens - Chavez's rhetoric almost always takes on politicians in the U.S. and their policies, and not the people or our particular system of democracy) stance was much more toned down.

I've wondered privately (and not too thoroughly) if Chavez would readjust his rhetoric were Obama to win. On the one hand, it's not hard to see how things would almost have to improve, given simply that Obama never openly supported the coup attempt of 2002 against Chavez; on the other hand, Chavez's rhetoric has emphasized anti-imperialism as much as it has targeted Bush, and what Chavez perceives as the U.S.'s structural imperialism won't simply disappear just because Obama may be president. Complicating the matters are to what degree (if any) Chavez's reputation among some sectors of the world are based at least in part on his image as a leading voice of the anti-imperialism movement. If Chavez were to thaw relations with Obama, would his position among some sectors of the left and the "developing world" be threatened at least somewhat, given that that image is based so strongly on his attacks on the Bush administration?

Well, in a follow-up post at the Latin Americanist, Chavez apparently indicated that an Obama administration may not change his attitude towards the U.S. government much. Of course Chavez's claim that "The two candidates for the U.S. presidency attack us equally, they attack us defending the interests of the empire," is ridiculous. Regardless of claims of "empire," the fact that Obama has been willing to dialogue with Chavez while McCain wants to continue the Bush position would seem to be strong enough an indicator of how erroneous it is to claim Obama and McCain treat Venezuela "equally." While it's true that Obama has sharpened his rhetoric on Chavez a bit in the past few weeks, I see little reason at this point to believe it's anything more than a political ploy to appeal to the broader electorate. Even if it isn't, the differences between Obama and McCain are so substantive in foreign policy alone that there's no way that Chavez's claim that Obama and McCain are equal has any real substance. It may be different shades of gray from Chavez's ideological point of view, but I think anybody with the slightest notion of the subtleties of American politics can understand how major the differences between Obama and McCain are.

As to whether or not an Obama administration more open to dialogue would be a threat to Chavez's role as an anti-imperial leader who rails against Bush, I'm not sure. Given how much the U.S. and Venezuela still need each other for oil, as well as Chavez's slipping (though far from extinct) influence in the hemisphere, I really can't see how warming the relationship with the U.S. with an Obama administration would necessarily hurt; I think most global leaders are practical enough in their plans for their countries (Bush being an exception) that they won't think less of Chavez simply because he spent the last 6 years railing against the Bush empire but might open to an Obama administration. And if McCain were to win the election, all of the above would be rendered moot, as we'd be exposed to at least another 4 years of the same idiocy from Washington that we've put up with for the last 6 years (in terms of Venezuela). But I think ultimately that neither Obama nor Chavez would really be willing, at least at the beginning, to totally exclude any possibility of opening up or thawing of relations between Venezuela and the U.S. without some diplomatic pretext setting the two men at odds. Regardless of the outcome, the relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela will be very interesting to watch in the first year or so of the administration if Obama wins the presidency, and it will definitely be worth paying attention to the rhetoric of Obama and Chavez up to the November elections.

There Is No Coordinated "Lula-Calderon-Uribe Troika"

While it's an interesting idea, I don't buy this idea of a "Uribe-Lula-Calderon" troika countering Chavez at all, for several reasons. Firstly, as I've stated repeatedly, Lula has been willing to negotiate with many non-traditional (i.e. non-European, non-U.S.) partners. Simply because he has been working with Uribe on some issues (including strengthening military ties via a binational military base on the Colombia-Brazil border) does not mean he's out to undermine Chavez's influence. Indeed, while I'm just making a rough guess here based on news in Brazil over the last couple of years, Lula has cooperated with Chavez far more than Uribe, and certainly far more than with Calderon. Lula's first job is to build up Brazil's strengths in the hemisphere and the globe. If that means entering economic, political, social, or economic agreements (open or tacit) with Chavez, he'll do it; if it means entering such agreements with Uribe or Calderon instead, he'll do that too. He (and Uribe and Calderon) are working first and foremost to steer their respective countries in the directions they deem are the best, and I just really find it hard to believe there could be any "anti-Chavez" axis emerging between the three of them, explicitly or tacitly; each is going to look after the interests of his own country, and to assume some "alliance" of any sort between the three to bring down Chavez is rather far-reaching.


Secondly, I think Tannock really overstates Uribe's importance both presently and in a broader historical context. Yes, the FARC has been reduced through deaths (natural and violent) and embarrassments (accidentally turning over high-profile hostages to the Colombian army, who you mistakenly think are your own troops; using a boy that it turns out you don't even realize is no longer in your possession in hostage negotiations), and Uribe's efforts have played no small part in this. This to a large extent explains his high approval ratings (which, according to some, hit 91% in the wake of the Ingrid Betancourt rescue). However, basing your entire perspective of Uribe's popularity and historical importance based on these recent developments is premature and wrong-headed. There is still the fact that Uribe's close friends and allies are closely tied to paramilitary groups. While this does not make him immediately guilty by association, he has done virtually nothing to make a strong case that he is not to some extent tied to paramilitary groups, either; indeed, in a rather Bush-like way, he has dug in further, simultaneously denying his knowledge and/or involvement while dodging the question. Even if Uribe is never directly tied to the paramilitaries, he has done virtually nothing to combat their power, either, and this will be a lasting stain on his record, too.


But there is an even more fundamental problem with the argument that Uribe's influence is extending throughout the America's at Chavez's expense based on the recent victories over the FARC. As popular as Uribe's successes have made him in Colombia, it is radically faulty to assume that his recent successes have left the rest of South America falling under his sway and abandoning Chavez. Simply put, the ideologies and beliefs of other leaders and populations in South America don't fall in line with Uribe's ideology and locus on the political spectrum. Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Ecuador are all run by popularly-elected leftist leaders. Uribe is the only rightist leader on the entire continent, and outside of Colombia, many Latin Americans from multiple nations loathe him as much for his ideological stance as for his close ties to the United States, which they view as an anachronistic and damaging model of economic reliance on the U.S. that hearkens back to the 20th century and that these other countries are successfully leaving behind. Simply put, in some ways, Uribe is a "stain" to the rest of Latin America for his cooperation with the U.S. and right-wing positions. To presume that his recent successes have put him at the forefront of international leadership and cooperation as the lone rightist leader on a continent of leftist countries is tautological.


I think the final major problem with this article is the insistence that Calderon is part of this "troika," yet Tannock does absolutely nothing to really establish how and why Calderon is a major player in undermining Chavez's influence in the hemisphere aside from the fact that Mexico has "geostrategic" influence. Specifically, Tannock makes a Uribe-Calderon connection simply because both presidents are trying to deal with the drug trade and repress it; the fact that the two "wars on drugs" share very few similiarities and are in two completely different political, historical, and even geographic contexts seems to be of little importance to Tannock. And the assumption that Calderon and Lula are similar because they are both trying to renegotiate and strengthen their ties to Cuba is ridiculous; to reiterate what I pointed out above, Calderon, like Lula, is simply trying to do what he sees is economically and politically best for his country. To sit out negotiations and dialogues with Cuba while other hemispheric powers were improving relations with Cuba would be stupid, alienating Mexico even further. Calderon isn't doing this because of some new "troika"; he's doing it because it's the smart thing to do.

In short, I just don't buy this whole notion of a "Uribe-Calderon-Lula" troika. Lula is far more tied to Chavez than to Calderon or Uribe (without being dependent on Chavez), and there is absolutely no evidence that these three men are trying to collaboratively and collectively undermine Chavez's influence.

As a final point somewhat unrelated to the above, I also really take umbrage with Tannock's contention "that Latin America was going through one of its regular bouts of leftwing destabilization, given the rise of Bolivian President Evo Morales, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, and their ringleader, Chavez." Firstly, leftism is not an inherently "destabilizing" force, and when leftist leaders in Latin America have witnessed "destabilization," it has been because of foreign powers' (particularly the U.S.) undue influence and open subversion of national sovereignty, be it in Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, or Nicaragua in the 1980s. There's nothing naturally "destabilizing" about left-wing leadership. And the suggestion that the rise of left-wing leaders in Latin America appeared to be little more than a "bout" is totally ignorant of recent history, when country after country in South America witnessed its economy devastated by neoliberal policies instituted by rightist presidents, leading to a backlash that perfectly coincided with Bush's insistence on focusing only on Iraq and the Middle East, leaving Latin American leftists and leaders with an unprecedented ability to establish themselves and chart new, non-dependency-based economic and political courses for their countries. To suggest that the continent-wide victories of leftists in Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Ecuador, is a "flash in the pan" is absurd; if anything, at least right now, it would seem that it's Uribe's administration that is the outlier.

In short, Tannock is right that Chavez's influence in the hemisphere may be declining, but not for any of the reasons he then tries (very unsuccessfully) to outline.

Brazil's Quiet Ascendancy over Chavez in South America

The NYT ran a great article yesterday about Brazil's ascendancy as (not "a," but) the regional leader for South America. There really is no question that Brazil has successfully assumed that role, and done so quietly yet firmly. As Kenneth Maxwell, a highly respected Brazilianist, puts it in the article, “While Chávez grabs the headlines, the debate over whether Brazil is becoming a regional power is moot [...] Brazil has actually made it to that level, but in a very nonbombastic way.”

This point cannot be stressed strongly enough. The U.S. media and public pay virtually no attention to Latin America, and I would venture (in a sheer guess based on no statistical analysis whatsoever) that 75%-95% of our attention focuses on Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela. The current administration has amplified this Venezuela-centric gaze, too, with its efforts to overthrow Chavez in 2002 and then its constant black-and-white propaganda battle that tried to succeed where covert involvement failed.

Yet for all the fear and rumbling and grumbling that comes from politicians and the media over Chavez, Lula has been the real force, all while being a non-threat to the U.S. The article outlines all this so clearly, but just to summarize, Lula's development of Brazil's own BNDES (which is itself becoming a very strong foreign lending institution within Brazil), as well as of alternate regional banking and financial institutions, have made more progress quietly than Chavez's Bank of the South, which is only a dream right now and has no sign of any real progress in the foreseeable future (if ever); Lula's infrastructural investments to genuinely help neighbors like Bolivia and Venezuela are only strengthening the goodwill between Latin American countries to a degree unseen since right-wing military dictatorships joined forces to combat "subversives" in each other's country (but with democratically elected governments this time); and the discovery of the Tupi oil field last year stands to really threaten Venezuela's Latin American monopoly in oil production in the world. Brazil's economy is not only one of the strongest in the region, but in the hemisphere, growing and improving while the U.S. economy is in a downfall (the real reached the level of 1.59 to the dollar, the lowest it's been since natural inflation kicked in in the mid-1990s when the previous president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, artificially set the exchange rate at 1 real to 1 dollar). In short, Brazil has done an amazing job in simultaneously improving its domestic standing economically and infrastructurally while also becoming the major regional force in South America.

However, for all the good that there is in the article, the Times correspondents once again can't help but reveal their total ignorance when it comes to the functioning of political parties within the Brazilian political spectrum. Not to put too fine a point on it, but when they write that "Mr. da Silva’s unexpected embrace of the market-friendly ideas begun by his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has emphasized how heterogeneous political thinking has become in Latin America, even on the left," they show a complete and total failure to even remotely begin to understand Brazilian politics. While Lula's policies in many ways can be considered "market-friendly," there's about as much similarity between Lula's approach to the economy and Cardoso's as there was between Hoover and FDR. Cardoso was extremely dependent on neo-liberal policies of privatization and dependency upon the US, Europe, the IMF, and the World Bank; Lula's fiscal and development programs have been dominated by state-sponsored investment and growth (like offering federal grants for college students to gain professional experience upon graduation), not privatizing everything at the first sign of trouble, investing heavily in infrastructural developments, and completing trade deals with new partners like Africa, China, and other parts of South America. One might think that the simple fact that Lula's party, the PT, and Cardoso's party, the PSDB, are two of the most antagonistic parties in all of Brazilian politics would suggest to the correspondents that Lula hasn't "followed" in Cardoso's footsteps very strongly, but the Times correspondents don't seem to grasp that (in the same way that they, with their too-American perspective on politics, have in other articles called Cardoso's PSDB "center-left" when it's firmly "center-right" to "right" in any broader political spectrum).

Additionally, the comment on "how heterogeneous political thinking has become in Latin America, even on the left" is as damning a statement on their ignorance as any sentence could be. Political thinking within the left in Latin America hasn't "become" heterogeneous; it's always been heterogeneous. Even when "Communism" was the main vein of political thinking, the debates and struggles over what vision of "Communism" (which many times wasn't even Commmunism) not only between but within individual countries was extremely heterogeneous. The fact that leftist (and rightist) political thinking in Latin America is heterogenous shouldn't really be a revelation to anybody who bothers to spend more than a half hour learning about South American politics. Yet these two men let their political ignorance besmirk what is an otherwise very well done piece.

Which is really a shame. The content of the article is really great in outlining what is an extremely important phase in Brazil's history that can and probably will have very long-term effects on the country's place regionally and even globally. It's just too bad that the Times' correspondents had to briefly inject their political ignorance and reveal how little they understand South American political thinking and political systems even while getting the main points of Brazil's growth right.

The Developing Crisis between Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela

To be up front, I am not a specialist in international relations, and in terms of Latin America, I am nowhere near as studied in Colombia/Venezuela/Ecuador as I am in Brazil or the Southern Cone.

That said, the new developments between Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela are rather intense, and have I think a real chance to get worse. Late last week, Colombia announced it had killed Raul Reyes, FARC's "number 2" (although, as Boz points out, this is a simplification of a complicated command structure in the FARC). As the story develops, it appears that Colombia actually invaded Ecuadoran airspace, and the Colombian military crossed into Ecuador without permission to kill Reyes, who was in Ecuador's national territory. In response, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador has sent troops to the Colombia-Ecuador border, withdrawn his ambassador from Colombia, and expelled Colombia's ambassador from Ecuador. Hugo Chávez has also shut down Venezuela's embassy in Colombia, and sent troops to the Colombia-Venezuela border, threatening war if Colombia tries to invade Venezuela, even to attack members of the FARC or the ELN. And while Colombia has apologized to Ecuador, Ecuador says the apology is insufficient, while Colombia claims it has found evidence in the camp of the 17 FARC members that Ecuador was in contact with FARC. Suffice to say, things are, at the moment, rather tense.

I don't really know what the implications of all this will be. Certainly, the relations between Chávez and Uribe can't get much worse, and have been drastically declining since Uribe inexplicably (and, although it all worked out OK, rather indefensibly) kicked Chávez out of the delicate hostage negotiations in November). Plus, both Chávez and Uribe stand to gain from the bump in approval ratings in their respective country that such national disputes often engender (some are saying Chávez in particular could benefit given his allegedly lagging status in Venezuela, but I simply have virtually no faith in any of the polling mechanisms in Venezuela, given the extreme partisanship, pro- or anti-Chavista, that runs throughout many "non-partisan" organizations there).

But the Ecuador element is more troubling. Correa has yet to prove himself to be somebody who acts without just reason, so the fact that he has taken this this far already shows how serious he feels it to be. While national soveriegnty and the control of borders used to be sufficient enough an argument for war or a highly-charged national response in its own right, today it seems a bit differnet, given the nature of guerrilla tactics and less immediate antagonism to such border-violations (witness the lack of outcry when Turkey entered Iraq a few weeks ago to go after Kurdish PKK "terrorists"). I get the sense that many may say, "So what? So Colombia went a couple miles into Ecuador to get some "terrorists." What's the big deal?" Given the way the world has globalized not just in terms of economy, but also technologically, culturally, and even politically, the respect for national borders doesn't strike me as being as strong as it may once have been. This is in no way aided by the fact that, sometimes national territory means virtually nothing to major world powers (the U.S.'s support of Contra bases in Costa Rica and Honduras) while other times, national borders must be protected at all costs (the Malvinas War).

But territorial issues have always been sensitive in Latin America, from the independence movements to today. One simply has to look at the ongoing battle over the northern third of Chile, won in the wake of the War of the Pacific, which deprived Bolivia of its one outlet to the ocean and which Peru and Bolivia still insist belongs to them even today, over 120 years after the war itself. Wars of this type were not uncommon in Latin America, having affected the territorial control of Bolivia, Paraguay, and even Ecuador itself, which lost land to Peru in a war in 1945, and over which eruptions flared again in 1995. One can see how Colombia's invasion of Ecuador's border could be more than a little upsetting to Ecuador.I think Colombia's charges that Ecuador was in contact with the FARC are a weak defense, at least until it becomes clearer to how deep these contacts ran. Colombia itself only mentioned "possible" connections betwen FARC-Ecuador, and I find it unlikely that Ecuador was really closely tied to FARC. If such contact did exist, it doesn't necessarily mean Ecuador was being overly friendly.

I'm not convinced yet this will erupt into some regional war. I think cooler heads have to prevail, though, and given Uribe's brashness in invading Ecuador, and neither Uribe nor Chávez is exactly a calm, patient, diplomatic figure. War benefits nobody here, though (save maybe for the FARC, who can use the war as a breather to regroup). There still hasn't been much said from other Latin American countries on the issue; Lula is asking his Minsiter of Foreign Relations for more information, but the president of Brazil's Câmara has already said that, if necessary, Brazil should try to use its role in the region to avoid crisis as a neutral moderator (i.e., representing neither Colombia nor Ecuador nor Venezuela). Hopefully, things will calm down. Still, war is not out of the question, and it will definitely be worth seeing how the events play out between these three countries (and the rest of the region) over the next few weeks.

US Spying in Bolivia

The U.S. embassy in Bolivia has been asking its Fulbright scholars and Peace Corps volunteers to spy on Cuban and Venezuelan doctors working in that country.

This is shocking and unacceptable. Asking the Fulbrights to do it is despicable. These are scholars that are supposed to build stronger relations between the United States and their host country through their scholarship. That the Embassy would be so stupid as to ask them to spy is shocking. Academics studying in Bolivia are predominantly on the left and big time critics of U.S. foreign policy. They are articulate and have access to media. Did the Embassy really think they could get away with this? Idiots.

This is also incredibly damaging to the Peace Corps. Since the Peace Corps' founding in 1961, it clearly served U.S. foreign policy interests. Most Peace Corps volunteers are good people trying to help people out in the developing world while also taking part in a unique experience of their own. However, I know from Peace Corps volunteers that the CIA has placed operatives within the organization in the past and probably are in the present. I'm not sure what the documentation is on this, but I am getting this from first-hand sources. The Peace Corps was intended to further U.S. policy, but they have always tread a delicate line with their host countries, keeping their volunteers away from such obvious and heavy-handed interference.

This could also fairly seriously hurt U.S.-Bolivia relations. Not that we have a huge economic interest there, but a Cuba-Venezuela-Bolivia bloc is a fairly important anti-American force. Moreover, I am planning on going to Bolivia this summer. I'm going to be extra angry at Bush and the fools in the State Department if they screw up my travel plans.

I have a source that might have a good bit more information. I'm trying to mine that now; if I have any luck, I will be sure to write more about this.

In any case, what a disgrace.

Why Chavez's Reforms Failed (A Reasoned Analysis)

I haven't written much on Venezuela's voting down Chavez's 60+ constitutional reforms (in part due to bureaucratic and research-based issues I've been having, but) primarily because of the difficulty in finding anything that isn't either painfully pro- or anti-Chavez (with the theories sometimes entering the painfully absurd and untrue). However, Stephanie Blankenburg has a great article up that very reasonably and intelligently goes through some of the possible reasons as to why the reforms failed here. It is well worth checking out, including some surprising (but very intelligent and well-argued) conclusions about the role of different classes in Venezuelan society, as well as the actual cultural and daily effects April's closing of RCTV may have had. I highly worth checking it out.

Lula and Biofuels at the UN General Assembly

I'm a little late in getting to this, but there is a great article from the Guardian about Lula's address to the UN during the general assembly. The main foci of Lula's address were biofuels, both in Brazil and in a global economic context, and economic systems. He was very right to criticize the one-sided agrigultural protectionism Northern Hemisphere, pointing out it was part of a broader system that "perpetuates dependency and underdevelopment".

However, what was really important in his speech was the material relating to biofuels. He was both defensive of the production of biofuels in Brazil, and criticized the North and other countries that remain uninformed about how Brazil produces biofuels. He took on both critiques from the "developed world" ("His speech reflects strong irritation in Brazil that many of the critics of the country's biofuel programme are using arguments about environmental protection and food shortages either as an excuse for northern protectionism or simply to defend their own oil and gas industries") and critiques from countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, who want biofuel programs curbed and agriculture to focus on the hunger question instead. As Lula pointed out, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, and it isn't an either/or proposition in Brazil, where "only a fifth of Brazil's arable land is currently under cultivation and of this less than 4% is used for ethanol". With criticisms like these coming from both the North and the governments furthest left in Latin America, no wonder Lula was a little defensive.

And he was totally justified, too. The article points out the "crocodile's tears" of Europe and the U.S., who claim to be concerned about social conditions in Latin America. Where in the hell do Europe and the U.S. have room to criticize Latin America for social conditions, given centuries of colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, and extremely punitive trade and economic relations, be it via one-sided tariffs, privatization, or the IMF and World Bank?

And of course, Chavez, Morales, and Cuba don't get off hook here. It's fine to be concerned with hunger, and far more consistent of them than the Northern Hemisphere to be worried about social justice, but trying to nail Brazilian industry and tie it to U.S. inefficiency here is irresponsible. Plus, both Bolivia and Venezuela rely so heavily on petroleum for their national incomes, they of course would have a less-than-altruistic concern if petroleum consumption fell and biofuel consumption rose globally. And let's not forget that, while it isn't a strained relationship, Chavez has occasionally struggled rhetorically and ideologically with Brazil as the two compete to increase their presence in South America.

That said, hats off to Lula. While his speech was in no way without its own political agendas and concerns, his points were fair and accurate, and I hope he continues defending Brazil and Brazilian interests that could actually help the globe (you know - the whole "non-fossil fuels" thing) as well as he did at the UN General Assembly.