Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on Latin America, courtesy of Randy Paul.
TOP TOPIC
* The Peru Truth and Reconciliation Commission releases a Truth and Reconciliation Report with a distinct difference: most of the abuses can be laid at the feet of the Pol Pot wannabes of Sendero Luminoso.
* JK: Latin America's worst dictators? Randy has 2 nominations - 1 right, 1 left.
Today's Topics Include: Ingrid Betancourt makes a brief appearance; Argentina makes progress toward removing amnesty for abusers; Iranian terror in Argentina; Hugo Chavez faces the inevitable; and Cuba's government tries to smear a dissident - but has it backfire.
* Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a nine volume report last week in which it concluded that over 69,000 people disappeared from 1980 to 2000. What separates this report from other truth commissions in El Salvador and Guatemala in which more than 90% of the deaths were attributed to government forces, is a majority of the murders were attributed to the brutal Shining Path terrorists. The government doesn't get off the hook completely, however. As in the case of Guatemala and El Salvador, the poorest of the poor in Peru bore the brunt of the suffering.
* JK: See Bart Hall's personal recollections, in the Comments section.
* A videotape of Ingrid Betancourt was broadcast on Colombian television last Saturday night in which she pleaded for the Colombian authorities to rescue her.
* The tape, which was made in May raised more questions than it answered: Why did the FARC allow the release of a tape in which a hostage pleaded for a rescue? Why is the tape being released now and what does that mean for this seemingly intractable war in Colombia? What is Ms. Betancourt's physical condition, especially after the recent bungled rescue attempt?
* On several fronts Argentina continues to make progress against impunity - both from the "Dirty War" era and the attack on the AMIA Jewish Center in 1994. Regarding the former, the Argentine Senate approved the nullification of the amnesty laws, which provided for amnesty for military officials accused of human rights abuses such as torture and murder during the military dictatorship. President Kirchner is expected to sign the law (if he hasn't done so already), but the conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court will have the final word. This has also had the effect of putting on hold the extradition to Spain of the 40 former officers indicted by Judge Garzan in Spain.
* Regarding the AMIA Jewish center bombing, President Kirchner and Judge Galeano have been the prime figures in moving this case forward. Hade Soleimanpour, former Iranian ambassador to Argentina was arrested last month in England on an extradition warrant from Argentina. In addition, last week Belgian police arrested Saied Baghban, also based on one of Judge Galeano's international arrest warrants issued on August 13. These are only the first steps, but they are important ones.
* 3.2 million signatures have been forwarded to the newly assembled electoral board for verification and it appears that Venezuela will finally have its referendum on the continued rule of Hugo Chavez. Even Chavez has acknowledged the inevitability of the process. If the opposition had devoted its energies to this process earlier instead of the divisive and costly strike, they may have had their referendum by now. There may be a satsifactory resolution to this situation after all.
* Not content with jailing dissidents, Catsro's regime is now trying to smear the reputation of Elizardo Sanchez.
* This may have backfired as several other dissidents have rallied to Sanchez's defense and diplomats in Havana as well as human rights NGO's have found his information accurate and helpful.
* JK: Unlike these NGOs, whose role is not exactly helpful.
* Bear in mind that this follows on the heels of the announcement that the dissident movement had in fact been infiltrated by Castro's spies who acknowledged their roles as spies. I certainly hope that this is merely Castro's regime getting greedy by attemting to ruin the reputation of one of his leading opponents.
* JK: Randy's too modest to include this, but his August 23 Round Up back on his own blog was also excellent, and covers Mexico, Brazil and Central America as well.
The next installment of Randinho's Latin America Briefing will be September 30. Meanwhile, regular updates concerning Latin American events can be found at Beautiful Horizons.
I haven't read the Peruvian report, and may well not read it, simply to avoid the pain. As an agronomist I was involved in a number of private Peruvian campesino ag development projects from the mid-80s through the mid-90s.
The goal of any guerrilla or terrorist movement is to de-stabilise the country sufficiently that people demand (or at least accept) a change of government. Ag development work, by its very nature, is a stabilising force. We were, therefore, the enemy of the Sendero.
In Satipo (Junin) 46 small-scale coffee growers were killed with machetes (by the Sendero) for the crime of wanting to stay on their plantations and grow coffee rather than join the Sendero and slaughter other peasants.
I could provide more examples, but will stick to the most revealing one. In Ayacucho, some years after most of the men had been murdered, the Sendero destroyed a women's wool cooperative by killing hundreds of their sheep and murdering the two agronomists working with them. All this in the name of saving peasants from themselves. Even if the agronomists made it into the report, I'll bet that the sheep didn't.
The Sendero slaughtered livestock by the tens of thousands. They burned crops. They cut down coffee plantations and fruit trees. Killing people was only incidental to their larger plan, which was to utterly destroy the Peruvian economy, especially in rural areas.
Their hero was Pol Pot. And unless something is done about Sr. Hugo Chavez, and done fast, we may see it all again, over a much wider area.
All of it brought to you by the same people who in 40 years took Cuba from a successful industrialising economy to abject and persistent poverty.
And all of it supported by a bunch of be-tweeded and incredibly naive American academics who never risked their lives for anything and have never even had to live with the consequences of their own silly actions and beliefs.
Focusing on Pinochet or Videla as the worst Latin American right-wing dictators is a typical case of presentism. Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), José Rodriguez Francia, Francisco Solano López (Paraguay) and Juan Vicente Gómez (Venezuela) would easily top any of them.
Val forgot Strosner.
As I said, it is futile to quantify evil, but if you intend to accuse me of presentism (does that make me a "presentist"), so be it. I concentrated on recent leaders precisely because of the standards of the world changed, especially post WWII.
All of your other choices were worthy candidates, especially Trujillo and Lopez should be remembered for nearly exterminating the male population of Paraguay in the War of the Triple Alliance. Again, I think quantifying brutal dictatorships is an exercise in futility.
I agree with you, I just wanted to remind readers that human nature being what it is, past evildoers were as bad as or worse than the newer ones. I have personal experience of dictators for my father was one of the founders of Acción Democrática, Venezuela's most important twentieth-century party and General Marcos Pérez Jiménez made sure our life was as wretched as possible. My father was jailed and tortured for many years and the feared Seguridad Nacional (kind of a DINA) would trash our house every few days.
I've been following that *Soleimanpour story* over at *The Argus. Absolutely fascinating... I really have to applaud Kirchner for resurrecting this thing. There are a lot of ins and outs to this thing, and Iran is having an absolute fit over it.
Linking every post I have would be overkill, but I don't have a lot in the way of archives if you want more on this. Here's the status of the case right now:
-Iran has cut ties with Argentina and threatened to expel the British ambassador.
-Soleimanpour has been denied bail.
-Belgium let their suspect go (diplomatic immunity)
-Iran has refused overseas travel rights to 40 military and government officials fearing their arrest. They also fear these guys might talk if arrested.
-Soleimanpour had an opportunity to flee, but didn't. Some think he was planning to defect.
-The EU is trying to quiet the issue down in favor of keeping good trade relations with Iran.
-Former Argentine President Menem didn't pursue this case (he's of Syrian origin), some think Iran paid him off.
It will be interesting to see this case develop.
Val,
I agree with you as well. What I find even more disturbing about modern day dictators, however, is that the world has changed so much since, say the days of Solano Lopez.
I firmly believe that the end of impunity in Latin America will go a long way towards preventing these abonimable acts such as the ones your family suffered.
Nathan,
I was reading about the case in The Economist today. Apparently the victims families aren't happy with Judge Galeano.