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
- President Uribe’s
impunityamnesty plan for Colombian rebels hits a major snag as internecine wars between top figures in the AUC leave a major question open: Where is Carlos Castańo?
Other Topics Include: Is the Latin American public moving away from democracy?; Are we stuck with Hugo Chávez?; Is Bolivia unraveling - again?; A dapper perp walk in Haiti; Guatemala's new president is a class act; a book recommendation on a Latin American country too often ignored.
COLOMBIA
- President Uribe's amnesty plan for members of the right-wing terrorist group, the AUC (Spanish acronym for United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) is blowing away in the wind like so much dust.
- It started at the end of March when the AUC's high command named a ten man negotiating team that didn't include founder Carlos Castańo. Then, on Friday, April 16 Castańo was attacked and six of his bodyguards were killed, allegedly by a rival figure in the AUC - or were they? The only thing certain is that Castańo has not been seen and the possibility of the paramilitary terrorists - to say nothing of the FARC and ELN terrorists - laying down their weapons seems less likely.
- The other nascent concern is the very real possibility that narcotraficantes may have garnered total control of the AUC. While this would certainly be nothing new (Castańo himself is under indictment in the US for drug trafficking) the concern here is that peace is even further away and the brutality of the AUC may even be ratcheted up even higher.
- Uribe shouldn't be surprised. There has been infighting among the AUC for some time. The AUC has extorted land from landholders in anticipation of disarmament, they have worked overtly and covertly with the military and have used civilians as human shields. My sympathies lie squarely with the decent, law-abiding citizens of Colombia trying to live their lives amidst the terror. I truly hope that Uribe is placing their interests first and foremost.
DEMOCRACY IN LATIN AMERICA
- A report released this month by the United Nations in which 20,000 people in 18 Latin American countries were surveyed about their feelings toward democracy. The results were disturbing: only 43% of those surveyed supported democracy fully and 55% said they "preferred an 'authoritarian' regime over a 'democratic' one if it could 'resolve' their economic problems."
- As you can imagine, this has provoked a great deal of concern among Latin America watchers and the media. Andrés Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald links the findings to an even larger contempt that many Latin American citizens hold for their legislators and makes a compelling argument that congresses tend to represent the elite and do not represent indigenous groups very well; some of whom are in the majority in their countries (e.g. Guatemala and Bolivia).
- I cannot help but find this worrisome and I have neither easy nor swift answers to this problem. On a personal note, however, it certainly jibes with my experiences in conversations with my Brazilian family and friends. Last summer my father-in-law expressed a wish for a dictator to come in and straighten Brazil out. I hastily reminded him that Brazil had dictators, most recently for 21 years (1964-85) and they had driven the society deep into debt while fracturing it. He lamented that Brazil did not have a leader like Getúlio Vargas any more. I told him that Brazil had had too many leaders like Vargas and perhaps they should really break the cycle. I hear this sort of sentiment from many younger people, too. I truly hope it's not indicative of a larger trend, but I can't help but be concerned, especially with recent events in Bolivia, Argentina and Venezuela.
VENEZUELA
- A recent poll shows that Hugo Chávez would probably narrowly win if a referendum on his recall took place now. It's hardly a ringing endorsement of his rule as it illustrates more than anything else how badly fractured the opposition is. The results are broken down as follows: 35% would vote for Chávez, 31% per cent would vote against him and 34% said they opposed Chávez, but were too frightened to vote or had lost faith in the opposition.
- Francisco Toro of Caracas Chronicles essentially agrees with the polling company's methodology while acknowledging the results as "grim." He also points out the hypocrisy of a pro-Chávez website taking these favorable (to Chávez) numbers while having dismissed as biased previous results from the same company. Any port in a storm, I suppose.
- With 65% of the population opposing you only a madman would claim a mandate. Marcela Sánchez makes a convincing argument that Chávez may indeed be mad, although his one time psychiatrist with whom she spoke said that Chávez "only suffers from the 'mental deformations' common to any person in power." Deformations, hmm. Does that mean he's warped?
BOLIVIA
- Bolivian blogger Miguel Centellas has a post on Southern Exposure about rumors of a possible military coup in Bolivia.
- Some of this arises from rumblings among the different military branches as Miguel notes as well as recent plans to sell some of Bolivia's huge natural gas reserves to Argentina for fear some of it my be resold to Bolivia's hated neighbor, Chile. Bolivia lost its Pacific coast to Chile in the War of the Pacific 125 years ago and the resentment has been as big a a source of nationalist ignition as the natural gas reserves below Bolivia's soil. Bolivia could really use the revenue generated from the sale of the natural gas as it is estimated that it would take centuries for Bolivia alone to use it. What Bolivia cannot use is another coup. Let's hope cooler heads prevail.
HAITI
- Co-founder of the terrorist group, the FRAPH, convicted murderer and fugitive from justice, Louis-Jodel Chamblain has turned himself in to Haitian authorities and will have another opportunity to face charges in the murder of Antoine Izméry in 1993 and the Raboteau massacre in 1994. Take a look at the picture accompanying the article. In addition to bringing democracy and societal improvements to Haiti, perhaps the force there now can show the Haitian authorities how to conduct a perp walk . . .
GUATEMALA
- Guatemala's new president, Oscar Berger has taken a bold step forward to improve human rights in Guatemala. In a public ceremony in Guatemala City, and as part of the fulfillment of a decision issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, President Berger acknowledged the government's culpability in the murder of anthropologist and human rights worker, Myrna Mack. It's a small step, but an important one and the first step towards putting an end to impunity in Guatemala and opening the door to justice.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
- One country in South America that seems to have been passed over by much of the world (myself included) is Paraguay. If you have always been curious about this landlocked nation, I recommend highly the new book At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay by John Gimlette. According to the book, the country is a mix of the curious and the bizarre, the quaint and the maddening. Gimlette interlaces his travels with the nation's history and it is entirely captivating. I never thought I'd want to travel there, but this book has roused my curiousity!
The next installment of Randinho's Latin America Briefing will be May 26. Meanwhile, regular updates concerning Latin American events can be found at Beautiful Horizons.
Regarding the wish for dictators, I've experienced the same thing with Peruvian friends who have told me they desperately want Fujimori to come back. I tried to explain how maintaining a democratic system and rule of law is the more important than having the right administration but my arguments fell on deaf ears. They thought I was some wild-eyed leftist who was supporting Toledo. They told me how much Peru had improved under Fujimori, how terrorism was squashed and the economy grown, how basic services like power supply had all achieved modern standards.
In their eyes, this excused all of Fujimori's later excesses, illegally running for a 3rd term (i.e., trying to become President for Life), the corruption, the scandals, the extrajudicial anti-terror tactics.
I do not see a resolution of Colombia's internal problems until control of the cocaine trade is decided.
The only way to force or even negotiate a solution is to end the drug war.
==============================================In the long run economic advancement is the only sure suport of democracy. The key is security. i.e. no Indian attacks.
One of the reasons America is so rich is that it has solved the security problem.
The book "The Sovereign Individual" covers the subject well.
Hey, I agree with M. Simon!
End the drug war already. It's perhaps America's greatest policy falure, as it's ramifications run through so many aspects of our society as well as in Latin America.
The problem with the violence in Colombia is that it goes much deeper than the drug war. La Violenica (a ten year period in which some 300,000 were killed in political violence) started in 1948. There has to be some more fundamental rethinking of how the society in Colombia works and I'm not sure how to do that.
Narcotrafficking is a means to an end. What worries me is that if all cocaine and coca plants were wiped off the face of the earth, the warring parties might turn to something else like gold, emeralds or extorting petroleum companies (which has, in fact been done). Kidnapping is a common revenue generator by the FARC and the ELN. I wish there were some easy answers here.