FTAA TALKS * After having started with great expectations, the meeting last week that was designed to lead to the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by 2005, resulted in aan agreement that is rather diluted. As Andrés Oppenheimer notes, the Declaration of Miami signed by the participants on Thursday essentially creates a two track system: one for countries that are enthusiastic about signing comprehensive bilateral agreements with the USA and others that are more interested in moving cautiously towards more limited agreements. * Oppenheimer attributes this limited agreement to concerns and political pressures from constituencies in Brazil and the USA - the two co-chairs of the meeting - about the possibility of having another failed trade meeting after the failures at Cancún, Seattle and Port-Of Spain Trinidad. He's certainly not alone with that sentiment. Marcelo Rinesi puts a humorous spin on what the conversation between the Brazilian trade minster and the American trade minster may have been like. * The week before, the Ibero-American Summit took place in Santa Cruz, Bolivia with leaders from the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries in the Americas as well as Spain and Portugal. Much of the focus was on aid and developing infrastructure, health care and education in the poorest countries. A number of good ideas were put forth including the idea of allowing debtor nations to reduce debt payments by investing in infrastructure. Marcela Sanchez directs some criticism at the USA's Millenium Challenge Account and its reliance on directing aid funding based on, among other factors, per capita incomes. While laudable, this leaves out much of Latin America as many of the countries have national per capita incomes greater than the threshold, but have major income disparities from one region to the next as the map of Brazil in this post shows. HAITI * As Haiti moves towards its bicentennial on January 1, the Aristide government maintains its grip on power while more than half of the population is unemployed and about half are malnourished. Repression has increased and so has violence, but don't just take my word for it. Read this op-ed peice from the Miami Herald by Raoul Peck. Peck directed the fine film Lumumba and was Minster of Culture in Haiti in 1996 and is not part of those referred to as the morally repugnant elite who overthrew Aristide in a coup in the early 1990's. * As all too often happens, it appears that Aristide has adopted many of the tactics of those he fought against in te 1980's and 1990's. His nation needs freedom, justice and aid, not repression, impunity and continued suffering. Although the Inter-American Development Bank just approved another $25 million loan, one can only wonder how likely any other lenders will follow if Aristide continues to ratchet up the oppression and the violence, malnutrition and suffering continues. BOLIVIA * The recently resigned former president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada recently struck back at his critics in this Washington Post op-ed in which he made a compelling case for Bolivia's need to develop and takes his chief anatagonists to task (rightly so, in my opinion) for not offering any alternative. * Yet ten years ago when Sánchez de Lozada was a private businessman, he, among others, successfully sought to sabotage an attempt to develop lithium mining in Potosi, Bolivia that would restored some of the riches that this largely depleted mining center once had. Why would he do this? Because he was cut out of the deal according to Álvaro Rejas, who was minister of mines and energy at the time. Glass houses and stones all over again. * This post from Miguel Centellas who lives in La Paz, has some of the latest information on what's going on in Bolivia now. GUATEMALA * The polls held true to form and Efraín Ríos Montt finished third in the presidential election in Guatemala two weeks ago, thus eliminating him from the possibility of being in a run-off that will take place between Oscar Berger and Álvaro Colom, the first and second place finishers, respectively. * While this is encouraging, Guatemala is also a major drug transhipment point and has numerous clandestine groups involved in protection of the drug trade, including former military officers. As Alejandro Rodriguez, a political analyst in Guatemala said, “The justice system here is incapable of finding a solution to organized crime because a lot of the criminals are inside the government.” There's still a lot more that needs to be done. COLOMBIA * After several resignations and some further housecleaning, President Álvaro Uribe seems to have his cabinet and his major commanders in the military set for now. After his cost-saving and tax-raising referendum was defeated last month and, with resignations coming in dribs and drabs over several days from his cabinet as well as an opposition candidate elected as mayor of Bogotá, some were wondering if Uribe's influence was waning. * One success that Uribe may claim is the agreement by the Cacique Nutibara block of the United Self-Defense Forces (the right-wing terrorist group known by its Spanish acronym, AUC) to agree to demobilize on Tuesday, November 25. I remain skeptical of this plan as I explained and explained yet again. Nevertheless, I would imagine for a population that is tired of being caught in the middle of the violence, this must seem like good news. To his credit, this past weekend Uribe, at a town meeting, accused a police unit of being so close to the right-wing death squads that they drank together and that the death squads charged protection money from local businesses with no interference from the police. * Meanwhile, after the recent Bogotá bar bombing, which certainly seems like the work of the FARC (the leftwing terrorist group that will complete forty years of existence next year), the US Embassy in Bogotá has banned its staff from the Zona Rosa district of Bogotá and has expressed concern that Americans are now being targeted. * Two of the hostages being held by the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN in Spanish), Reinhilt Weigel of Germany and Asier Huegen Echeverria of Spain have been released after seventy-four days in captivity. They were among eight foreign hostages taken on September 12. One of the hostages, Matthew Scott, escaped in harrowing fashion the day after the kidnapping and walked for twelve days to freedom. According to Roman Catholic church officials who helped negotiate the release, the ELN has promised to release the remaining five hostages by Christmas. Vamos a ver . . . VENEZUELA * Facing the collection of signatures starting on Friday for a recall referendum against him, Hugo Chávez has decided to play a game of tit for tat and start collecting signatures for the recall of opposition legislators. Miguel Octavio, is unimpressed and has some pictures to show why. He even notes that Chávez, who signed the petition with a great flourish and, like so many politicians, used baseball clichés while he did so, signed in such a way as to render his signature invalid! Someone needs to fire that advance man. . . NEW LATIN AMERICAN GROUP BLOG * I'm pleased to announce the birth of a new Latin American Group Blog called Southern Exposure. We have contributors in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina/Paraguay Barcelona and two in New York, including myself. Click over, check us out and let us know what you think. As I'll be enjoying the Brazilian sun over the Christmas holidays, the next installment of Randinho's Latin America Briefing will be January 27, 2004. Let me extend my holiday wishes to everyone! Meanwhile, regular updates concerning Latin American events can be found at Beautiful Horizons.