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President-elect Cristina Fernández honoured her pre-election promise to make Brazil her first port of call after October's elections. Whether she honours her promise to "change" bilateral relations with Brazil for the better by establishing biannual meetings of the two governments with "concrete and quantifiable goals" to replace bi-ministerial reunionismo (meeting for the sake of meeting), is a moot point. "Change is just beginning" was Fernández's election campaign slogan but, with the exception of the appointment of Martí­n Lousteau as her economy minister, it was not in evidence in her cabinet reshuffle [WR-07-45].

Fernández arrived in Brasí­lia with an entourage including Lousteau, as well as some of the old hands she is retaining, such as the prime minister, Alberto Fernández, the federal planning minister, Julio de Vido, and the foreign minister, Jorge Taiano. They were greeted by Brazil's President Lula da Silva and a handful of Brazilian cabinet ministers. Lula's top foreign policy adviser, Marco Aurelio Garcí­a, hailed the decision to hold biannual meetings, chaired by Lula and Fernández, to deepen integration as one of the key achievements.

However, as regards integration, the appointment of Lousteau has aroused some suspicion in Brazil. The influential financial magazine, Valor, ran a lengthy profile of Lousteau, devoting considerable coverage to a book he co-wrote with former central bank president Javier González Fraga two years ago, "Sin Atajos," ("No Shortcuts"). In the book, the authors criticised trade asymmetries with Brazil and argued that, though "an excellent idea", Mercosur had done little to develop Argentina's industry. In Lousteau's defence there is nothing startlingly controversial about these comments, the issues providing a perpetual source of conflict within Mercosur since its inception.

Lousteau's plans have also been the subject of extensive speculation in the Argentine press. Both La Nación and Clarí­n, argue that he will focus initially on moderating public spending, to rein in inflation, and "normalising" the national statistics institute, Indec. If so, this will be the first real test of how much room he has for manoeuvre in his new job as he will need to deal with the powerful commerce secretary, Guillermo Moreno, whose constant meddling with Indec was the primary reason for Lousteau's predecessor, Miguel Peirano, leaving his post. La Nación also quoted Fraga as saying that Lousteau would be very cautious to begin with but would then face two significant challenges: raising public service tariffs by 20%, but providing the poor with a "social tariff"; and altering the "encaje bancario" ("mandatory bank reserve") - the proportion of deposits the banking sector must keep in the central bank - in order to penalise consumption and provide better incentives for investment.

Another person accompanying Fernández to Brazil was Lino Barañao, who will head the new science and technology ministry. This was previously part of the education ministry, which will now be run by Juan Carlos Tedesco. The other two new ministers are Graciela Ocaña (health) and Florencio Randazo (interior); the present incumbent, Aní­bal Fernández, will pick up the justice portfolio. The ministers commanding the big budgets - De Vido and Alicia Kirchner at social development - kept their positions, raising questions about from where any "change" will come. There were no cabinet positions for the K Radicals either. They will want several junior posts to preserve their loyalty to Kirchnerismo.

Just as it appeared that the dispute between Colombia, on the one hand, and Ecuador and Venezuela, on the other, could spiral out of control, it was promptly resolved. Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez , revelling in his role as an international statesman with a defining influence on events, was widely heralded as a peacemaker par excellence. It is safe to say that never before had so much been achieved in a seven-hour summit of the Rio Group. The tension was palpable in the early exchanges between Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe and his Ecuadorean peer Rafael Correa, but by the end, all of the principal protagonists had shaken hands and embraced.

In fact, Chávez had played no small part in building up the tension in the first place, severing diplomatic ties with Colombia and sending troops to the border even though Venezuela was not involved in the dispute. However, Chávez often works at a tangent to prevailing conventions and he showed his remarkable protean powers during the Rio Group summit. He dropped all of his bellicose rhetoric and became the smooth conciliator. The Rio Group (an assemblage of 17 Latin American countries that grew out of the Contadora Group, which negotiated solutions to the Central American wars of the 1980s) returned to its roots: a forum for mediating in disputes or conflicts.

When the Rio Group was set up, it was seen as a Latin American alternative to the Organization of American States (OAS), without the domineering presence of the US. It might now regain that stature. After the resolution approved by the OAS on 5 March omitted to explicitly condemn Colombia for bombing a camp of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) on Ecuadorean soil, Correa visited Managua where he said that the OAS should be consigned "to the dustbin of history" if it failed to issue Colombia with a stern rebuke.

Correa upbraided Uribe as "a danger for the whole region". "In accordance with his deranged and warlike discourse - that a state can intervene wherever it sees a threat to its national security - all of Latin America could bomb Colombia. And not only the Colombian jungle […] but the Senate and perhaps even the Casa de Nariño, where paramilitaries and drug-traffickers are also apparently hiding". Uribe refused to be photographed with the other heads of state before the summit and told the press he would meet neither Chávez nor Correa. Yet by the end of the summit he was embracing them and Correa had accepted a resolution in which Uribe not only apologised for violating Ecuadorean territory but promised it would never happen again "under any circumstances".

In a long opening speech, Uribe had sought to justify Colombia's bombardment of the Farc camp. He said he had not notified Correa well in advance of the attack because if so "the incursion would have failed" - an admission that seemed to belie his previous claim that the bombing was in "legitimate self-defence" while explaining Correa's grievance over a "premeditated attack". Uribe went on, however, to argue that there were two types of sovereignty: territorial - which he accepted Colombia had violated - and popular. He said the Colombian people had shown their complete repudiation of the Farc (which he said had frequently attacked from Ecuador) on numerous occasions and in particular of Raúl Reyes, the Farc number two killed in the attack who he accused of obstructing the humanitarian exchange.

Uribe said the three laptops confiscated from the camp demonstrated disturbing links between the Correa administration and the Farc. Correa did not take kindly to the allegation. He denied any links to the Farc - insisting that his hands were "not stained with blood" - and said it was "difficult to believe someone who has lied so many times". The Ecuadorean line, backed up by the French embassy and representatives from the Chilean Communist party who visited Reyes shortly before the bombing, is that Ecuador was involved in negotiating the release of 12 hostages with Reyes, including the Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.

Chávez : the great integrationist

These opening salvos were broadcast live on television, Uribe having appealed for a public session for the sake of complete transparency. After several other heads of state had spoken, Chávez took the microphone. He urged everyone to step back from the brink and to set aside their differences for the sake of peace. He even sang a merengue. His performance was described by the Colombian weekly, Semana, as "a cross between Pope John Paul II and Nelson Mandela". OAS secretary-general, José Miguel Insulza, who was also present at the summit, said that Chávez 's intervention had been "tremendously constructive".

Seizing upon the change of mood, the Dominican President Leonel Fernández called for the warring parties to make up at which point Uribe strode across the room to shake hands with Correa (to loud applause) and then Chávez . He dropped his threat to take Chávez to the international criminal court for "sponsoring and financing terrorism"; Chávez , who had previously accused Uribe of "state terrorism", restored diplomatic ties and announced that the troops he had sent to the border would return to barracks. Correa said that while it would be "very difficult to restore trust", he would restore relations by the end of March. Nicaragua created a new record for severance and re-establishment of diplomatic relations: President Daniel Ortega had ruptured relations with Colombia after Correa's visit to Managua only a day earlier.

US unimpressed

The US reaction to the resolution was interesting. While the spokesperson for the State Department, Scott McCormack, said he was happy that diplomacy had prevailed he quickly moved on to the Farc laptops, saying that the findings on the files should be used to "really trace back some of those links between the Farc and states and individuals in the region." A team of experts from Interpol is currently in Colombia examining the 15,000 files. Any information contained in them should be treated with extreme caution. They are likely to reveal far more about the Farc's distorted view of reality beyond the jungles - important in itself - than they do about any alleged multimillion-dollar funding by Venezuela.

As a result of the Rio Group agreement, the pressure on the OAS mission, which visited Ecuador and Colombia this week in order to compile a report to present to a meeting of foreign ministers on 17 March, was greatly reduced. It is now unlikely to condemn Colombia and even if it does, the Colombians will consider the resulting slapped wrist a small price to pay for having dealt a severe blow to the Farc (see page 16). The OAS mission was taken on a tour of the bomb site by the Ecuadoreans and to Putumayo (bordering Ecuador) by the Colombians to see coca crops they claimed had been planted by the Farc being manually eradicated. The report will need to address Ecuador's call for an international peacekeeping force from the OAS, or failing that the UN, to control the border.

• Chávez , Castro and Bush

President Hugo Chávez met Fidel Castro in Cuba on 8 March after the successful outcome of the Rio Summit. In his fifth article in the space of a week, Castro said "He (Chávez ) was happy, euphoric from that battle for peace and his role - recognised by the international press - made him happy." Speaking on Cuban state television, Chávez repeated Fidel's words that "imperialism, which is trying to destabilise Latin America" suffered "the greatest defeat". On 12 March President George W. Bush accused Chávez of destabilising the region as "the Caracas regime […] tries to expand its influence in Latin America."

Divisions have become increasingly marked in Tarija, the fourth and final region gearing up to hold an illegal plebiscite on autonomy on 22 June, (after Santa Cruz, Pando and Beni). While the autonomy votes in the other three regions proved relatively plain-sailing for the prefects concerned, elections recently held in Yacuiba, capital of Tarija's Gran Chaco province, have provided Tarija prefect Mario Cossí­o with a headache.

Elections to choose a deputy prefect and departmental councillor were held on 15 June in Yacuiba, appointments which, according to the law, should be made by the regional prefect. A strong civic movement exists in the Chaco region, where the largest gas and petroleum reserves in Bolivia are concentrated, which supports autonomy but rejects regional centralism. While in the past Cossí­o has seen the political necessity of negotiating with the Chaco authorities, on this occasion he stood firm, refusing to recognise the result on the basis that it was illegal.

The federal government also dismissed the vote as illegal, but the deputy minister for decentralisation, Fabián Yaksic - who was subsequently accused of encouraging the vote to take place - nevertheless said that the process was “very interesting" and could prove helpful for Cossí­o when it came to deciding upon his choices for the posts.

Cossí­o's refusal to recognise the vote however has led Yacuiba civic leaders to threaten action which could “negatively influence" the 22 June vote which, without the support of the Chaco region, could easily fail. Members of the opposition party, Podemos have warned Cossí­o that his behaviour is undermining the regional autonomy vote given that this too lacks any legal basis.

Tensions

The decision by President Evo Morales to cancel a trip to Tarija on 18 June points to the threat of violence within the region. Morales had been due to make a public appearance in Tarija to hand over ambulances and other resources to municipalities in the department. However, crowds spurred on by yobs from the Santa Cruz-based rightwing youth group Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC) gathered at the airport to protest his arrival.

This is the second time in less than a month that Morales has been forced to cancel a public appearance in order to avoid violence. On 25 May he cancelled a trip to Sucre, the capital of Chuquisaca, for similar reasons. As has been the case with the other regions where votes on autonomy have taken place, the UJC has sent representatives to intimidate people and “encourage" them to vote. The departmental electoral court has identified at least five potential hotspots where violence could occur on 22 June.

• Goldberg recalled

The US government announced on 16 June that its ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, would return to Washington to discuss “security" matters after violent protests took place outside the US embassy in La Paz a week earlier.
   The protests were caused by revelations that former Bolivian defence minister Carlos Sánchez Berzaí­n had been granted political asylum by the US over a year ago. The protesters blame the former defence minister together with ex president, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who also lives in the US, for ordering an army clampdown on anti-government protests in 2003 which resulted in 65 dead and more than 400 injured.

• Prefects

The deputy minister for transparency and anti-corruption, Nardi Suxo revealed that Tarija prefect Mario Cossí­o topped the list of prefects accused of misusing regional funds generated through the profits of the direct hydrocarbons tax (IDH). According to Suxo, 18 complaints have been filed against Cossí­o followed by José Luis Paredes, (La Paz) 17; Ernesto Suárez Sattori (Beni), 8; Manfred Reyes Villa, (Cochabamba), 6; Leopoldo Fernández, (Pando), 6 and Rubén Costas, (Santa Cruz), 3.

President Lula da Silva's personal approval rating stands at an impressive 77.7%, according to the most recent opinion poll by CNT/Sensus. This is his best rating since taking office in 2003. Significantly, the poll suggests that 44.1% of Brazilians will cast their vote in the October municipal elections for a candidate backed by Lula. The Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) government is also very popular - 68.8% of respondents gave it a positive rating. This is the best result for a government since CNT/Sensus began compiling this poll in 1998, and should bode well for a candidate chosen by Lula to compete in the presidential elections in 2010.

Three factors underpin this solid rating: the strong economy; the government's generous social programmes; and Lula's direct connection with the voters. On the back of this the PT and its coalition allies are set to make strong inroads in the municipal elections on 5 October, with the survey indicating that official candidates are on course for victory in 20 of 26 state capitals.

Lula's backing for some candidates of government-allied parties rather than others, however, is causing rifts among his allies. Messages of support in TV adverts for candidates of the PT and of the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCdoB) have enraged other allied parties. This is especially true with regard to the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), which is not ideologically close to the PT but which depends on Lula's support - or at least his non interference - to guarantee victories in the local elections and its position as Brazil's largest party.

The minister for institutional relations, José Múcio, who is responsible for coordinating government allies in congress, told Lula it was best to avoid controversy and refrain from campaigning in places where allied candidates are running against each other. “After the elections, furious losers will knock on our door and this will undermine the government," he was quoted as saying to Lula. Múcio is not a disinterested party. His Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB) is not ideologically close to the PT either and may be ditched after the municipal elections.

While Lula knows that the support of parties like the PMDB and the PTB has been crucial for getting government bills through congress, his popularity seems to have led him to believe the PT could go it alone (or with only the support of leftwing parties) in 2010. According to CNT/Sensus, the PT is set to increase its representation by around 30% in the local polls, granting the party crucial local platforms to launch a presidential candidate capable of crushing the opposition.

Lula is voluntarily cited by 23.4% of Brazilians when asked who they would vote for as president in 2010. But Lula is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive mandate. Without Lula in the race, José Serra, the current governor of São Paulo for the main opposition Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, maintains a commanding lead over all the likely PT or allied party candidates, including Lula's preferred successor, the minister of the presidency, Dilma Rouseff. But with 61.5% of respondents saying that their living standards have improved under Lula, and 75.3% that they would vote for any government candidate who maintained the current social programmes, he is in a strong position to choose his successor, and draw invaluable electoral support.

President Evo Morales sent an emergency high-level delegation to Brazil last week to discuss the recent drop in Brazil's natural gas imports from Bolivia, together with the threat to cut imports further. While the Brazilian government subsequently backed down, it became apparent once again that, with Brazil heavily investing in its own natural gas (and hydroelectric) sector, Bolivia needs to try and diversify its gas export markets.

In early January, Brazil's state-controlled energy company, Petrobras, announced it was cutting its daily imports of natural gas from Bolivia by a third, from 31m to 19m cubic metres per day, after good rains in Brazil had filled reservoirs, allowing electricity companies to switch to cheaper hydroelectric plants rather than natural gas-fired thermal plants. This followed the closure of all gas-fired plants in the main industrial south-eastern zone in December amid a switch to hydro-generators.

Brazil's energy minister, Edison Lobão, announced shortly afterwards that Brazil's electricity sector monitoring committee was considering a plan to shut a further 15 thermal power plants temporarily. A Bolivian delegation comprising energy, public works and nationalisation ministers - Saúl Ávalos, Carlos Villegas and Héctor Arce - was promptly dispatched to Brazil to discuss the proposed cuts.

Brazil is Bolivia's main customer for natural gas, which provides the government with an estimated 41% of its fiscal income. While Bolivia had protested that Brazil was contractually bound under a 1999 agreement to pay for at least 24.8m cubic metres a day, Brazil maintained that the contractual floor is actually 19m cubic metres a day.

The Brazilian government had argued that the proposed cuts would allow it to make important savings (of around US$600m) at a time of slowing economic growth. However, press sources in both countries also suggested the threat owed partly to poor relations between Petrobras and Bolivia's state oil company, Yacimientos Petrolí­feros Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), which have been strained since 2006 when Morales nationalised the hydrocarbons sector. Although Petrobras remained as a joint partner with YPFB and is heavily involved in the Bolivian gas sector, difficulties between both companies remain. Brazil's discovery in November 2007 of vast offshore hydrocarbons reserves has also resulted in it making strong efforts to boost its own thermal capacity so as to reduce its need for Bolivian gas.

Brazil backtracks
The trip by the Bolivian delegation was heralded as a success by the Morales government. Villegas announced on 10 January that Brazil had agreed to reduce its shipments to only 24m cubic metres a day. However, the prospect of Brazil reducing gas imports in the future has forced the Morales government to consider alternatives. Villegas mooted the idea of selling gas to Uruguay and Paraguay.

This is interesting in the context of talks held in September 2008 regarding the possibility of reviving the now-defunct trilateral strategic association agreement, Urupabol, after Paraguay's new President, Fernando Lugo, made it clear that improving ties with Bolivia was a priority.

Initially established in 1963, Urupabol had the objective of serving as a geopolitical counterweight to Argentina and Brazil although it collapsed 13 years later after Paraguay's dictator, General Alfredo Stroessner, withdrew backing for the idea, under pressure from Brazil's military dictatorship.

• Chile

While acknowledging the need for alternative gas markets, the Bolivian government ruled out Chile as an option, for now at least. In a 2004 referendum Bolivians voted overwhelmingly against exporting gas to Chile unless access to the Pacific was granted.

The latest testimonies of the federal police constable, Protógenes Queiroz, and the banker, Daniel Dantas, to a congressional committee investigating illegal wiretapping have revealed deep divisions among government-allied congressmen. The testimonies failed to cast new light on the mystery surrounding a federal police investigation into Dantas's obscure links with past and present federal administrations. But the enquiry seems to have gone on for long enough to prompt the government to step in and end it.

The congressional enquiry started in September last year, after it became clear that Brazilian authorities had been bugged by Queiroz, who was carrying out an investigation on Dantas. Dantas became a very wealthy man after his bank, Opportunity, started to do dealings with the previous federal administration of the (now opposition) Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), culminating with him winning control of Brasil Telecom after the company's privatisation in the late 1990s. Dantas's links with the government continued after the leftwing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) came to power in 2002.

Through Brasil Telecom, Dantas purchased the newly established videogame company of one of President Lula da Silva's sons, Fábio. But the relationship soured at some point around 2005, allegedly after Lula's then chief of staff, José Dirceu, decided to take back control of Brasil Telecom. At this point, Dantas used an US private investigation company, Kroll, to find out information about members of the government, supposedly with the aim of blackmailing them. Under pressure, Dantas finally decided to give up his stake in Brasil Telecom last year and, subsequently, a presidential decree allowed the merger of the company with Oi to create a Brazilian communications giant.

Dantas was then arrested on suspicion of corruption by Queiroz, but was speedily released by the supreme court, after Queiroz's methods were questioned, prompting the start of the congressional enquiry. Queiroz and Dantas were summoned and gave their versions of the story, denying any wrongdoing. Earlier this year, congress was ready to conclude its investigations without blaming anyone for the illegal tapping of authorities - despite having established that people within the federal police and the Brazilian intelligence agency (Abin) had bugged authorities. Meanwhile, Queiroz was forced to go on gardening leave by the federal police, while a new investigation into Dantas, and another one on the illegal links between the federal police and the Abin, was launched.

Pressure from backbench congressmen forced the work of the committee to be extended until 14 May. This time, however, the supreme court granted both Queiroz and Dantas an injunction that allowed them not to answer questions, without fear of being arrested. Significantly, the supreme court also issued an injunction that allowed the (now former) Abin chief, Paulo Lacerda, to reject his summons to congress. As a result, congressmen were not allowed to confront Lacerda with claims made by Queiroz that the Abin had participated in more than 160 investigations carried out by the federal police, which is illegal, and that the investigation into Dantas was carried out on the orders of the presidency.

Without new answers, government-allied congressmen were left accusing each other, of either defending the illegality of Queiroz's investigation or of having links with Dantas. The government then stepped in. It instructed the allied heads of the committee to close the enquiry, suspending the testimony of the minister for strategic affairs, Mangabeira Unger, who Queiroz accuses of defending the interests of Dantas. The usually critical PSDB has been notably absent from the enquiry.

• “Fun-for-all"

Congress has legalised “fun-for-all" with the indiscriminate use of air-tickets paid for out of the public purse, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo said this week after congressmen agreed on new regulations regarding the use of air-tickets. This followed allegations that congressmen were distributing air-tickets (part of their perks so they can visit their constituencies regularly) to family and associates while claiming expenses for actually flying to Brasí­lia on private jets. For congressmen, the decision “moralised" the use of air-tickets by allowing them to give their tickets to anyone they want. They can also “save" their allowances and use them against a more expensive international air-ticket.

Last week thousands of campesinos across Guatemala took to the streets to demand that President Alvaro Colom make good his promises to improve the plight of the rural poor. This is the second such spate of unrest in less than month. With Colom struggling to assert himself amid the instability caused by the events in neighbouring Honduras, the show of discontent from what is purportedly his support base highlights the continued polarisation in the country and the pressures facing the President.

On 23 July, peasant groups such as the Comité de Desarrollo Campesino (Codeca) and Plataforma Agraria, which altogether represent some 125,000 families, set up blockades at 16 different points across the country to put forward various demands. These include subsidies to boost agriculture production, fertilisers, wage increases and congressional approval of some US$368m in bonds to provide funds for rural development. While largely peaceful, the protests resulted in clashes in the south western Retalhuleu region which left 12 police officers and seven peasants injured.

Colom said that the government is working on a rural development bill which would address the problems afflicting rural areas, and promised further talks between the campesino organisations and the government. Presidential spokesman Ronaldo Robles defended the government, insisting that it had fulfilled its declared commitment of investing US$254m in rural development in 2008.

The blockades were not the only sign of popular discontent; ten days earlier, some 8000 protesters from the San Juan Sacatepéquez municipality, northwest of Guatemala City held a two day strike protesting mining activity in the area and, specifically, the authorisation of licences to cement manufacturing company, Cementos Progreso. The action culminated in a march to the capital where lengthy negotiations between government representatives and community leaders yielded a government agreement to undertake a comprehensive environmental impact study within 90 days and hold off from authorising mining licences unless there is consensus from the national mining forum.

The chattering classes may be appalled by the idea that a lot of their fellow citizens believe that crime has got so out of control that vigilante groups are now the only answer, but there is growing evidence that this becoming the true mood of the country. Five unrelated events this week show that Mexico is in danger of abandoning a core principle of civilised life: that the end does not justify the means.

The two most telling events are: an opinion poll published on 9 November and the near lynching (by burning alive) of six suspected kinappers at San Matí­as Cuijingo in the Estado de México, the country's biggest and most prosperous state. What made the attempted lynching, on 10 November, even worse is that two federal policemen were part of the gang of kidnappers who were on the point of being executed before the lynchers relented. The lynchers, who apparently numbered over 1,000, got as far as dousing the suspects in petrol.

The opinion poll, by Marí­a de las Heras, was published in a national daily newspaper, Milenio. The poll found that 40% of Mexicans favoured the creation of “self-defence groups" to combat drug-trafficking gangsters. More comfortingly 53% of those polled said that they objected to the creation of such groups.

The issue of vigilantes has come to the forefront of public life after the mayor of San Pedro Garza Garcí­a, a posh suburb of Monterrey in the northern state of Nuevo León, announced the death of an alleged kidnapper four hours before his body was found in Mexico City [WR-09-44]. The mayor, Mauricio Fernández Garza, who is a prominent member of the ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) was interviewed by the federal Procuradurí­a General de la República over the incident on 10 November. Fernández was elected mayor of San Pedro in July despite the publication of tapes of his alleged discussions with gangsters. According to the transcripts of these tapes, Fernández said that he would ignore the gangsters' drug trafficking provided they prevented kidnapping and drug peddling in San Pedro. Since his election Fernández has promised to take his own “rough measures" to deal with crime because the country's current law and order polices have failed.

According to the Milenio poll, 32% of Mexicans believe that Fernández has done nothing wrong so the federal authorities should do nothing to undermine him because he is fighting crime. Only 21% said that Fernández should be sacked and questioned to see whether he had anything to do with the killing of Héctor Saldaña Perales, alias “El Negro", whose body, along with that of two of his brothers and a fourth man, was found in Mexico City on 31 October. Most (41%) of those polled said that Fernández should be questioned but not sacked.

What the Milenio telephone poll did indicate was that Mexicans are far from sure that the current legal and police system will defeat the gangs. Only 48% said that the current system was perfectly adequate to defeat organised crime and that there was no need for the authorities to break the law to fight crime. A worrying 43% said, however, that sometimes the law prevented crime fighting.

So far this year, over 5,400 people have been killed by gangsters. There is no official count and some independent tallies claim that the death toll is about 1,000 bodies higher. Almost a third of those killed have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the US.

The sense that the country may be close to a change towards a more brutal “ends justifies the means strategy" was endorsed by two other subsidiary events. The first was the statement from Marcos Fastlicht Sackler, the president of the Asociación Nacional de Consejos de Participación Cí­vica. He delivered a damning verdict on the government's security policies on 8 November. Fastlicht represents the largely voluntary civil society groups which make a huge contribution to any country. His verdict is that although Mexico is not a failed state, it is definitely a country with failings. He noted that in the three years since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa took office in December 2006, the cumulative death toll has been between 14,000 and 15,000.

Fastlicht said that civil society was in a strange state. On the one hand lots of people were more frightened about making a contribution; on the other more and more people were getting involved in voluntary groups to combat crime. Two prime examples of this are México Unido and SOS de Fernando Martí­. Fernando Martí­ was the son of a prominent businessman who was kidnapped and murdered, probably by local policeman, in 2008.

The fourth event was the unprecedented booing of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa at Torreón, Coahuila when he opened a new football stadium with Pele, a Brazilian footballer, who was cheered.

• Maquiladora industry calls for UN intervention

The third event came on 11 November when two prominent business people in the crime-ridden border city of Ciudad Juárez called for the UN to send peace-keepers into the area.

The call is hugely embarrassing for the government which has deployed 8,000 troops and policemen in Ciudad Juárez yet failed to lower the murder rate substantially. Around 1,750 people have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez so far this year. At least 6,000 businesses have moved out of the city because of the crime threat.  

The joint call for UN peacekeeprs came from Soledad Maynez, president of the Asociación de Maquiladoras de Exportación, and Daniel Murguí­a, the local head of the Cámara Nacional de Comercio (Canaco). Currently an average of 10 people a day are killed by gangsters in the city. The gangsters now seem to be targeting what is left of the city's entertainment industry such as nightclubs and bars. Locals say that since these attacks started the city is almost deserted after 8pm. The mayor of Ciudad Juárez lives in El Paso, on the Texas side of the border.

• Senate picks new human rights chief

On 5 November the senate picked Raúl Plascencia as the new president of the Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH). Plascencia is the continuity candidate, though even he recognises that the CNDH has lost credibility under the outgoing president, José Luis Soberanes. The commentariat would have preferred the outgoing human rights commissioner for Mexico City, Emilio Alvarez Icaza, because commentators believed that he would have shaken up the CNDH.

Anti-crime movements such as Movimiento Blanco, the Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal and the Comisión Mexicana de Derechos Humanos all welcomed Plascencia's appointment. They believe that he will focus more on the victims of crime rather than the rights of criminals.

Plascencia was selected after two rounds of voting. Leftwingers say that he does not want to challenge the government enough: they point out that an investigation led by Plascencia did not solve any of the 597 “disappearances" that took place in the 1970s and 1980s. Plascencia will take office on 14 November and serve for five years. The third candidate, Luis Raúl González   Pérez, was seen by some human rights campaigners as too close to a controversial former president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

• Lynching

In 2004 two federal policemen were actually lynched in an outlying area of the Distrito Federal by locals. They had been mistaken for kidnappers. What made this incident doubly shocking was that it was broadcast on national TV as it happened.

The ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) is being criticised from all sides for its ill-advised attempt to practice low politics. It has now transpired that last year the PAN reached an understanding with the biggest party in congress, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), to get the government's mild reform programme and budget through congress in the autumn of 2009. In return the PAN promised not to join any “Stop the PRI" alliances in the gubernatorial elections this year.  The PAN, however, welshed on its side of the bargain, setting up a string of anti-PRI alliances in various states and threatening to establish an anti-PRI alliance in the Estado de México, the country's biggest and richest state, in its gubernatorial election in 2011.

The crisis has already prompted the interior minister, Fernando Gómez Mont, to resign from the PAN and may yet cost César Nava, President Felipe Calderón's particular choice as PAN party president, his job.

The problem for the PAN is that it has been whipsawed. Initially it was criticised by Panistas for going into alliances with its ideological opposite, the leftwing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and that party's allies Convergencia and the Partido del Trabajo, to stop the PRI winning most of this year's 12 gubernatorial elections. Senior Panistas outside the government argued two points. First, that the alliances were anti-democratic since they would restrict voters' choices; and second that they betrayed the PAN's historic reputation as a party where principles ranked above power.

Then, when it transpired that Gómez Mont and Nava had made agreements in October 2009 with the PRI to get the government's reform legislation through the federal congress in return for a explicit promise that the PAN would not go into alliances to “Stop the PRI" in the gubernatorial elections in 2010 and 2011, the PAN politicians were criticised for their bad faith and opportunism.

To complete the PAN's embarrassment, Nava first denied that there had been any agreement with the PRI; then that there had been any written agreement; before completely reversing his position and saying that of course there had been an agreement, and publishing his copy of it. He added that it had never been implemented or acted upon.

As Manlio Fabio Beltrones, the leader of the PRI in the senate commented, “the only thing worse than a professional politician is an unprofessional politician". This is an echo of the famous comment made by Carlos Hank González, the PRI's political kingmaker in the 1970s and 1980s: “A poor politician is a poor politician".

Gómez Mont resigned from the PAN on 10 February when he failed to prevent the PAN going into an alliance with the PRD in Oaxaca. Nava, who is now at the centre of the criticism, is being made to suffer by the PRI which is refusing to let him resign his seat as a deputy in the lower chamber of the federal congress. On 9  March, PRI deputies paraded an image of the Disney version of Pinnochio (a mythical character whose nose grew longer the more lies he told) in congress. The allusion was to Nava.

Reportedly, Nava has even made a mess of his attempt to resign his congressional seat. He failed to square his application with Josefina Vázquez Mota, the PAN leader in the lower chamber. She, probably, could have done a deal with her opposite number in the PRI, Francisco Rojas. Both she and Rojas have the difficulty of having their party presidents sitting as deputies. They would like their party presidents, Nava and the PRI party president, Beatriz Paredes, to resign their seats and not cramp them. 

So far both Gómez Mont and Nava have kept Calderón out of the row. Calderón, however, must have been consulted, at the very least, over the congressional deal with the PRI. The big question is whether he also sanctioned the attempted double-cross.  

Nava may yet be forced to resign from the PAN party presidency, though he mounted a strong defence of his position on 10 March, challenging his most prominent critic, Enrique Peña Nieto, the governor of the Estado de México to a public debate and demanding that Paredes, who was cheered by her fellow Prií­stas in the chamber on 9 March for her denunciation of Nava, take a polygraph test. What is probably keeping Nava in his PAN job is the fact that any successor would only have a couple of months to buoy the party before the main round of this year's elections, in July. Furthermore, Nava's (interim) term anyway expires in October.

Nava has been close to President Calderón. Calderón moved Nava from being his private secretary to heading the PAN in August 2009 when Calderón's first choice for party president, Germán Martí­nez Cazares, resigned after the PAN was trounced in the mid-term congressional elections in July 2009.

On 7 March Juan Ignacio Zavala published a parody on the whole saga, in Milenio, a local newspaper. The importance of this article is that Zavala is Calderón's brother-in-law. So what Zavala said about the pact may give an insight into what President Calderón is privately thinking. The pact was signed on 30 October 2009 and involved four signatories: Paredes, Gómez Mont, Nava and Luis Enrique Miranda, the number two in the Estado de México government. The specific commitment was that the PAN would not go into any alliance against the PRI in the Estado in 2011. The main butt of Zavala's parody was Nava.

The Estado is politically important because it supplies 12% of the country's federal congressmen. Peña Nieto hopes that he can parlay his position as governor of the state into becoming the PRI's presidential candidate in 2012. His problem is that there is a tricky hiatus between surrendering the governorship and assuming the presidential nomination.

• Democratic doubts
  One result of the PAN's dabbling in low politics has been disgust from ordinary Mexicans. According to a 9 March opinion poll in El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper, 69% of respondents believe that there are problems with democracy in Mexico. Even before the PAN-PRI pact, politicians and politics had a poor reputation. In recent elections voter turnout has fallen. The danger is that lower turnouts in Mexico will allow even more dubious characters to win elections. The opinion poll, by Berumen y Asociados, found that voters had problems with politicians' abuse of power, corruption and their failure to deliver on election campaign promises.
  

“On 7 August I will be able to say like Newton that if I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants."

-Colombia's President-elect Juan Manuel Santos eulogises President Alvaro Uribe.

“Not to recognise the work of the Concertación is not to have a heart, but to think of repeating it is not to have a brain."

-Chile's Marco Enrí­quez-Ominami.

“For me it's the fourth goal of the day; a 'celeste' day."

-Uruguay's President José Mujica celebrates the decision by Argentina's Gualeguaychú assembly to lift the three-year blockade of a bridge linking the two countries as the national team (“La Celeste") defeat South Africa 3-0 in the World Cup.

“I never thought it would come to this: the addiction to power and money of the Kirchners is something which has never been seen before." This from a man who was number two to former President Carlos Menem (1989-1999) for two years. Argentina's former president Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003) said this week that he regretted his decision to back Néstor Kirchner for the presidency in 2003. He excused himself for creating a monster on the grounds that at the time Kirchner was the only new thing in the Partido Justicialista (PJ) and the people were crying out for novelty. Duhalde's ferocious attack is part of his effort to ready the ground for a tilt at the presidency in October 2011.

Kirchner habitually denigrates Menem's administrations, which became a byword for corruption, as the polar opposite of his government and that of his wife and successor, President Cristina Fernández, but there is a steady flow of allegations of illicit enrichment against the Kirchners and their coterie of pingüinos, officials who served under Kirchner in Santa Cruz and came with him to Buenos Aires. Duhalde went further, criticising the Kirchners of moral corruption. He argued that they had deformed Peronism, allowing a firebrand radical, Hebe de Bonafini, one of the founders of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, who he claimed supported left-wing terrorists, to become “the spokeswoman of the government".

Despite his claims to the contrary, Duhalde is well aware that Kirchnerismo remains a potent force within Peronism and that there is a distinct possibility that one of the Kirchners, either husband or wife, may win next year's elections. Both of the main opposition groups - dissident Peronists and Radicals - face divisive contests to select a presidential candidate.

Duhalde was echoing remarks by Peru's newly crowned Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, on the right of the political spectrum, who accused the Kirchner administration of being “corroded by corruption". But, in a savage critique, Vargas Llosa also indirectly criticised the Argentine opposition for allowing the Kirchners to come to power. “It's enough to listen to the Argentine president to know what populism and demagoguery is. It's hard to understand how a country like Argentina, with what it has contributed culturally and scientifically at a world level, has chosen a president of such intellectual and cultural poverty."

Brazil's defence minister Nelson Jobim has met his counterparts in Argentina and Uruguay, Arturo Puricelli and Luis Rosadilla, respectively, to deepen the defence alliance within Mercosur. The visit follows Brazil's strategy to increase military cooperation with its neighbours to dissuade external threats to the region's three main natural resources: energy, potable water and food production. 
 
In Buenos Aires, Jobim agreed with Puricelli that both nations should develop “joint military industry capability." Among projects that could be developed in partnership is the production of a light military vehicle, the so called Gaucho, and cooperation between Brazil's aircraft manufacturer Embraer and Argentina's Fadea to manufacture KC 390 cargo planes, designed with Brazilian technology, at a factory in Córdoba, Argentina. According to Jobim, the plane could be launched on the global market in 2018.
 
In the joint declaration that followed, Brazil and Argentina agreed to give mutual logistical support to each other's missions in the Antarctic and to keep the South Atlantic free of nuclear weapons. In this sense, Jobim reiterated Brazil's “historical support" for Argentina's claim of sovereignty over the British Falkland Islands. “I will be going to the UK in the next few weeks and will tell the British [...] that we will not cooperate with any military or merchant navy ship to explore energy from those islands," Jobim declared.
 
In early January, the Brazilian government refused to grant authorisation for the British navy ship HMS Clyde, which was on its way to the Falklands, to moor in Rio de Janeiro as scheduled [WR-11-02]. The Brazilian refusal confirmed that the new administration of President Dilma Rousseff will take a more active approach to Argentine claims over the islands, as discussed with her Argentine counterpart Cristina Fernández during lunch in Buenos Aires late last year. 
 
In Montevideo, Jobim discussed the state of affairs in Haiti, where both Brazil and Uruguay have military contingents. Jobim met President José Mujica, who seems keen to develop joint military aviation projects. According to local reports, the Uruguayan government proposed the installation of a factory in Uruguay in cooperation with Brazil to produce pieces for military planes as well as ammunition. Jobim said that the issue had not been discussed properly during the visit but declared that Brazil was committed to forming a South American “defence industry."
 
Jobim went on to lament the “logistical dependency" of the region on the military industries of developed nations. “Now we have no control of the Atlantic and in the future we will have to control our air space. From 2025, air space control will be done through satellites and not radars and we will need to have in place the necessary capability to take this control," he said. 
 
Rio's civilian police chief sacked
Constable Allan Turnowski was asked to tender his resignation as civilian police chief in Rio de Janeiro after 30 policemen, included military policemen, were arrested accused of helping drug traffickers and militiamen with information about police operations. The scandal led Rio's governor, Sergio Cabral, to put the command of the civilian police in the state directly under the control of the public security secretary. Before resigning, Turnowski, passed on information suggesting another constable, Cláudio Ferraz, who commanded the operation that led to the 30 arrests, had committed similar irregularities.  
 

• Minimum wage

The lower chamber of Brazil's congress approved a minimum wage increase to R$545 (US$325) a month, as proposed by the government of President Dilma Rousseff against demands from trade unions [WR-11-06]. The government amassed sufficient support to throw out politically motivated opposition proposals for a higher rate of increase. However, Rousseff counted on more support from her Partido dos Trabalhadores' main ally, the Partido do Movimento Democratico Brasileiro, than among members of her party, who voted against the government for a higher increase, which now must be approved by the senate. 

The training institute for the new federal agency, AFI, emphasises respect for rights as well as professional skills.

The Fox administration is hoping to give federal policing a completely new image, beyond having replaced the widely feared Policí­a Judicial with the new Agencia Federal de Investigación (AFI), which is supposed to be loosely modelled on the FBI. The instrument meant to achieve the real transformation is a new training institute set up under the wing of the PGR, the chief prosecutor's office: the Instituto de Capacitación y Profesionalización en Procuración de Justicia Federal (ICP).

The catchphrases that summarise the ICP's aims are `effective justice' and `respect for the rule of law'. Aspiring federal agents and forensic experts will undergo a year-long course (with a tight midway filter to weed out the unsuitable) that combines specific policing skills with a heavy emphasis on respect for citizen's rights. This is meant to erase the attitudes that led the Policí­a Judicial into the practice of all sorts of abuses, including torture. PGR spokesman Jorge Carrillo raises as a banner the fact that Mexico was the first country to adopt the Istanbul Protocol, the international set of guidelines intended to eradicate torture and other abusive practices from policing.

Higher entry standards
The faculty, headed by academic director Mari Cruz Santana, is drawn largely from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Unam) and the Universidad Iberoamericana, plus some instructors seconded from the military — as the trainees will be expected to master kidnap prevention, protection of officials, even urban combat. These `hard' skills are concentrated in the second half of the course, after students have been tested on the academic and human rights content.

In order to break with the custom of recruiting poorly educated personnel, entry to the ICP will be restricted to those who have obtained a licenciatura (roughly equivalent to a bachelor's degree) or have undergone some kind of higher education. The ICP has been equipped with state-of-the-art forensic laboratories and shooting range, as well as an extensive library. An interesting detail: the current student body includes dozens of women, and ICP officials say they are more likely to withstand the rigours of training than the men.

The PGR officials acknowledge that it will take some time to dispel the image created by the old PJ, of a corruption-ridden force that inspired fear rather than respect. They do claim, though, that some `timid' progress has been made since the commissioning of the AFI in October 2001: the new agency, with its new style, is becoming more familiar in some states, and anticrime successes at the national level — particularly against the drug cartels — are beginning to reflect favourably upon it.

Santana says the AFI will be doing its job properly when it has grown to about 5,000 fully trained agents. The ICP's current intake is 500 a year, which means that, allowing for attrition, the target will take most of a decade to achieve.

ARGENTINA | Intercepting illegal flights. The Argentine airforce reports that since June last year it has intercepted 120 illegal entries by aircraft into Argentine airspace. It says that the evasive manoeuvres by the aircraft clearly indicate that they were not piloted by farmers who had simply failed to file flight plans. Most of the incursions originated in Paraguay; in one case a plane loaded with contraband cigarettes was found to have been piloted by an active-duty Paraguayan airforce colonel. Another, entering from Bolivia, was found to be carrying 311 kilos of cocaine. As Argentina, unlike Brazil and Colombia, does not have a 'shootdown' law, the intercepting aircraft are limited in what they can do to force the illegal flights to land. More often than not, actual captures are achieved by notifying law-enforcement agencies on the ground where the offending aircraft have touched down. In many cases the aircraft turn back to their point of origin, which at least aborts the smuggling operation: captures have also been recorded as a result of informing the Paraguayan authorities where the aircraft are heading. The airforce is clearly angling for the introduction of a shootdown law, and is using as interceptors aircraft capable of offensive action.

URUGUAY | Military resist accountability. On 15 July General Juan Córdoba, commander of the first army division, requested to be relieved of his duties due to his disagreement with the Vázquez government's decision to go after members of the military for three cases of human rights violations during the period of military rule (1973-85). The commander of the army, General Angel Bertolotti, commended Córdoba as 'a loyal soldier', and vowed that the service, while respecting the constitution and the president's authority, would devote 'maximum effort' to defending those officers who acted in obedience to their orders, 'no matter what causes' are invoked to put them on trial. This was the most visible sign yet of the irritation caused by what the military perceive as reopening cases that are legally closed.

As one of the conditions for returning power to the civilians, the military had secured passage in 1986 of the so-called 'expiry law' which, like Argentina's 'Full Stop' and 'Due Obedience' laws, shielded them from prosecution. Unlike Argentina, in Uruguay's case this law was ratified three years later by the electorate in a referendum. Much as Chile and Argentina found loopholes in such attempts to enshrine impunity, in Uruguay three cases have been ruled as beyond the scope of the 'expiry law': the 1976 abduction in Argentina of a pregnant woman, her transfer to Uruguay, the theft of her child and her later murder in a military barracks; the murder of two Uruguayan legislators, also in 1976, in Buenos Aires; and the 1993 murder in Uruguay of Chilean chemist and former secret agent Eugenio Berrí­os, the man who developed sarin poison gas for Pinochet.Charged in these cases are nine now-retired military and police officers, and two colonels still serving. It is worth noting that for all the belligerent talk, the army high command has decided to confine its 'maximum effort' to providing legal representation from the accused: they have all been ordered to comply with any court summonses. Meanwhile, two associations of retired officers are petitioning for an injunction against the trials.

BRAZIL | Referendum on firearms ban. The Brazilian congress has issued a legislative decree calling for 23 October the expected referendum on whether a blanket ban on firearms should be introduced. This had been foreseen in the so-called firearms statute enacted last year, under which the government introduced a series of restrictions on gun ownership and use and, since July last year, conducted a gun buyback scheme under which 342,300 firearms have been collected.

Mexican government agencies do not agree on the precise nature of the realignments that have been taking place within 'el narco' - as the country's drug underworld is now routinely called. However, they and their US counterparts broadly concur on one thing: that a coalition of sorts led by the Sinaloa cartel bosses has been gaining ground in its countrywide turf war with the Gulf cartel. The Gulf leaders claim that the coalition and the government are actually working hand in hand against them. Intentionality aside, a clear defeat of the Gulf cartel could spell the end of the current bloody turf wars.

There is no doubt that changes have been taking place within el narco. The government portrays many of them as reflecting its own success in disrupting or greatly weakening many of the relatively smaller drug gangs. Its most recent assessments of the situation after five months of President Felipe Calderón's large-scale military-police operations do not, however, suggest that intelligence is all that precise regarding the specific impact of the campaign.

Changing appraisals

In mid-April this year, the Mexican media cited an intelligence report prepared by the federal public security ministry (SSP), Radiografí­a de las Organizaciones de Narcotraficantes ('X-ray of the Drug-Trafficking Organisations'), as saying that since the end of 2006 there had been great changes in the structure and organisational relations of the drug cartels. It arrived at the conclusion that alliances between gangs are shortlived, entered only for the purpose of carrying out specific deals, after which they return to compete, often violently, for the control of territory.

According to the published extracts of the SSP report, the current leading gangs are:

-The Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquí­n Guzmán (el Chapo), now also known as the Milenio organisation, having absorbed the cartel which went by that name (led by Luis Valencia, previously allied with the Gulf cartel). Prominent traffickers associated with this gang are Ismael Zambada (el Mayo), the Beltrán Leyva brothers, Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, the notorious 'enforcer' Edgar Valdez Villarreal (la Barbie), Valerio Palma Salazar, and el Chapo's brother Ernesto. This is cited as the most powerful drug conglomerate countrywide.

-The Gulf cartel, with its core turf in the north of the country reduced mainly to Tamaulipas and Coahuila is lacking a paramount leader since the imprisonment of Osiel Cárdenas and his recent extradition to the US. Vying for overall leadership are Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén ('Tony Tormenta'), Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano ('el Lazca', head of the Los Zetas team of gunmen), Eduardo Costilla Sánchez ('el Coss'), Héctor and Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa ('el Goyo'), former army man Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar ('el Mamito') and several other minor figures. The cartel has suffered the defection of members who now operate on their own under the names 'Gente Nueva' (Veracruz) and 'La Familia' (Michoacán). The Gulf cartel is still considered the most violent, acting through the team of gunmen known as Los Zetas. Gente Nueva has recently embarked on a campaign to eliminate members and allies of Los Zetas in their turf. 

-The Juárez cartel, still in operation in its home territory in Chihuahua, allied with a group based in Quintana Roo.

-The Los Amezcua gang, previously thought extinct, still active under the leadership of Jaime Arturo Ladino, specialising in trafficking methamphetamines.

This SSP assessment came less than a month after the chief prosecutor's office (PGR), headed by Eduardo Medina-Mora, said that Mexico's drug cartels had coalesced into three organisations: the Tijuana cartel, the Gulf cartel, and the Juárez-Sinaloa cartel. Just over a year earlier, when he was federal public security minister, Medina-Mora had said that the turf wars gripping many states was largely the result of confrontations between four cartels: Tijuana, Juárez, Sinaloa and the Gulf. One major change since then, he said, had been that the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels had struck an alliance, which was disputed by the media version of the SSP assessment (though Patricio Patiño, undersecretary for strategy and police intelligence, alluded to a 'Sinaloa-Juárez-Milenio' cartel on 19 April). 

In his new reading of the situation, Medina-Mora said, 'There have been structural changes which render irrelevant any attempt to draw specific borderlines between one cartel and another.' Among these structural changes he lists the shift of Mexican drug gangs towards synthetic drugs such as metamphetamines, their diversification into other criminal activities such as kidnapping, and the capture of 'some of the most important' drug barons.

 

Tijuana-Sinaloa linkup?

The Mexican authorities, however, have kept quiet about a report published in February by Milenio Semanal (purportedly based on 'a confidential document of the federal authorities') according to the report, Sinaloa boss Guzmán ('el Chapo') had presided over a meeting early that month in Durango, attended by 'el Mayo' Zambada (Sinaloa ally), 'Nacho' Coronel Villarreal (a Durango boss allied with the Sinaloa outfit), Héctor Beltrán Leyva (another Sinaloa ally, cited as representing the Cártel del Pací­fico), Vicente Carrillo Fuentes (one of the bosses of the Juárez cartel), Raúl Toledo Cornejo (representing the Arellano Félix or Tijuana cartel) and Alberto Valencia Cornelio (high-ranking boss of the Milenio cartel).

According to the report, this assemblage, calling itself 'La Comitiva' (literally 'The Delegation'; a name usually given to the groups of drug bosses within prisons), decided to join forces, respecting each others' routes and plazas (distribution hubs) and acting in unison against the Gulf cartel. This would appear to confirm Medina-Mora's report of an alliance between the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels and to add an important new factor: an alliance of the Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels, which Medina-Mora had listed as separate forces. It is worth emphasising that the Milenio report and follow-ups in other Mexican media say that a prominent item on the Comitiva's agenda is the desire to reach a point at which it can negotiate a modus vivendi with the government.

The last report issued by the PGR during the Fox presidency had listed seven cartels: those mentioned by Medina-Mora last year plus Los Amezcua (also known as the Colima cartel), Los Valencia (the Milenio cartel) and the Dí­az Parada organisation (or Cártel del Istmo). The SSP currently sees the Amezcua and Dí­az Parada cartels as having been virtually subsumed in the broader Sinaloa-led conglomerate. In 2003 the US government counted 11 cartels.

The 'Federation'

The most recent assessments by Mexican government agencies are not, by any means, the first to suggest that drug gangs were merging or coalescing. Back in June 2005 the DEA was telling the US Congress that 'el Chapo' Guzmán, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, Juan José Esparragosa ('el Azul') and 'el Mayo' Zambada had formed a 'Federation' of drug-trafficking organisations. In July that year Mexico's federal deputy chief prosecutor for organised crime, José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, announced the launch of a binational US-Mexican programme to confront the threat of the 'so-called Federation', formed - he said - by the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels plus several smaller organisations. At the time, the PGR's official line was that no such Federation existed. 

By August 2006 the DEA was talking about a 'Federation' which included those mentioned previously plus Durango boss Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, distinguished from another 'federation' of drug gangs DEA officials had reported emerging on both sides of the Mexico-US border under the leadership of the Arellano Félix (Tijuana) organisation.

Some drug traffickers had been drawn by the idea of forming a countrywide 'federation' from even further back. During the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-94) it was reported that 'el Azul' Esparragosa had made greatefforts to orchestrate one. His prospective partners at the time were Juan Garcí­a Abrego (Gulf cartel), the Arellano Félix brothers (Tijuana), Amado Carrillo Fuentes (Juárez) and 'el Mayo' Zambada (Sinaloa) - several of whom have since departed the scene. Esparragosa did enjoy a close but brief relationship with Carrillo (who died in 1997); in 2004 the US Department of Homeland Security had him 'working cooperatively' with 'el Mayo' Zambada.

Recent press briefings by US antidrugs officials continue to refer to 'the Federation', identifying the Sinaloa cartel (or 'consortium') as its driving force. One official was quoted as saying, "Breaking up the Sinaloa consortium is a priority." 

A distinctive feature of the more recent reports of alliances between the drug gangs is that the same names keep cropping up. A comprehensive mid-2005 report by Alberto Nájar entitled Los cárteles se renuevan: La nueva geografí­a del narco ('The Cartels Renew Themselves: The New Geography of the Drugs Trade') listed 34 cartel bosses and top lieutenants. Only five of these are no longer active: all the others figure prominently in the most recent surveys of drug-gang realignments. This is perhaps the most eloquent commentary on the efficacy of the major antigang campaign conducted by Fox and Calderón.

Converging against the Gulf cartel

The broad common drift of the successive assessments is that a core Sinaloa group associated with Guzmán and Zambada has succeeded in attracting a large number of other organisations into a loose alliance which shares a common cause: opposing the Gulf cartel. Between them they have a presence in 27 states and the federal district, and they are engaged in a bitter, often bloody, confrontation with the Gulf cartel in six of the states where that group has been pre-eminent . 

In this pursuit they are aided - at least objectively - by outfits that had recently broken away from the Gulf cartel and set themselves up as independent rival organisations. Prime examples are La Familia in Michoacán and Gente Nueva in Veracruz, who have been making headlines with the ferocity of their attacks on Gulf cartel members in their states. The government has reported that Nabor Vargas Garcí­a ('el Débora'), one of the co-founders of Los Zetas, had broken away and set himself up separately in Campeche before his arrest with 17 members of his outfit in April this year.

Gunmen from both the Sinaloa conglomerate and the recent splinters of the Gulf cartel have been targeting law-enforcement officials. At first this appeared to be a response to the offensive launched by Calderón in December, but as this continued it became increasingly apparent that the targets had been chosen because of their links with the Gulf cartel or Los Zetas. The aim seems to be to remove the Gulf cartel's protective network within the law-enforcement establishment in order to set up alternative 'cover' within officialdom.

The Gulf cartel has explicitly accused 'el Chapo' Guzmán and his associates of working in collusion with the government. It is a fact that the government has taken advantage of the situation to strike against a weakened Gulf cartel (one of its recent achievements has been a string of coups against Los Zetas in different parts of the country) and to break up rings of corrupt police. Government officials have repeatedly dismissed any suggestion that they might seek a negotiated end to the drug-related violence. 

 

• Guzman rumours
  Even without negotiations, one scenario has been gaining currency: that a clear victory for Guzmán and associates over the Gulf cartel would end the worst of the current turf wars. This would not necessarily spell victory for the government, just a very different set of strategic requirements for its own 'war on drugs', which is likely to include detecting a new 'enemy within'

MEXICO-US | ICJ rules two ways on death sentences. On 19 January the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down a unanimous ruling that the US violated the injunction order issued last July, with the August execution of Mexican national José Ernesto Medellí­n in Texas. The ICJ had ordered the US government to use all measures at its disposal to suspend the execution of Medellí­n and four other Mexicans until it ruled on Mexico's petition for an interpretation of a 2004 ruling on the review of the death sentences passed on several dozen Mexican nationals.

While condemning the US for its violation, the ICJ also turned down Mexico's petition, saying that it had failed to define precisely enough the terms of its dispute with the US. The Mexican authorities nonetheless welcomed the court's ruling inasmuch as it 'reaffirmed the mandatory nature of its ruling and called on the US to obey the 2004 sentence.' All that remains, said Mexico's chief legal counsellor, Joel Hernández, was for the US to adopt the legislation needed to impose the implementation of ICJ rulings throughout the country.

US legal counsellor John Bellinger also welcomed the court's ruling 'because the ICJ rejected Mexico's main petition' and the judges agree 'that the US fully accepted the sentence and had worked hard to apply it.' The problem, of course, is that under current legislation the federal government cannot overrule states such as Texas which retain the death penalty. Bellinger said that after Medellí­n's execution, the federal government had again approached the government of Texas to urge a review of the death sentences passed in that state. He said the state government had show a 'predisposition to support the reviews'.

MEXICO | Making headway against kidnapping. On 31 December the public security ministry (SSP) reported that in 2008 the federal police captured 228 kidnappers in actions conducted in 14 of the country's 32 states (including the federal district). They had also managed to rescue 31 hostages.

The bulk of the arrests (67%) took place in three districts: the state of México (35%), Mexico City (18%) and Oaxaca (35%). These arrests disrupted eight kidnap gangs in each of the first two of those districts. The full significance of these figures will only become apparent when full figures for reported kidnappings countrywide in 2008 become available. In 2007 there were 476 reported kidnappings (it must be kept in mind that many kidnappings go unreported).

Arrests of suspected kidnappers in 2008

District                      N °                  District      N °
México state             80                   Sinaloa       7
Mexico City              41                   Chihuahua  6
Oaxaca                     32                   Sonora       4
Guerrero                   14                   Tabasco     4
Baja California          13                   Tamaulipas 4
Morelos                    11                   Hidalgo       3
Coahuila                     7                    Michoacán  2

Source: Own presentation of SSP data.

MEXICO | Garcí­a Luna under scrutiny. On 21 January  is that the Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información Pública (IFAI, the official 'freedom of information' agency) called for the publication of all investigations launched into alleged criminal behaviour by Garcí­a Luna. This reverses IFAI's prior stance that top officials should enjoy the presumption of a good reputation. It has now formally requested that the chief federal prosecutor's office (PGR) publish all the investigations of Garcí­a Luna conducted since 1990.

The US State Department has released some of the delayed Mérida Initiative funds but has also withheld some of the recently approved new funds for the Initiative, the latter until such time as it sees some improvements in specific human rights areas. The Mexican government has protested that this comes just after State had certified to the US Congress that Mexico had been making progress on the human rights front.

On 3 September the State Department reported to Congress that it was releasing US$36m of funds approved for the Mérida Initiative that had been held up since last year. It also said that it was withholding US$26m (15%) of a recently approved sum of US$175m until it could certify that Mexico had made progress in three areas: curtailing the powers of military courts to hear cases involving abuses of civilians by members of the military, giving more powers to the Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH, an official body that acts as human rights ombudsman), and improving relations with human rights advocacy groups.

The Mexican foreign ministry promptly complained that the State Department had just reported to Congress that Mexico was implementing actions to improve the observance of human rights. It added, 'Cooperation with the United States against transnational organised crime through the framework of the Mérida Initiative is based on shared responsibility, mutual trust and respect for the jurisdiction of each country, not on unilateral plans for evaluating and conditions unacceptable to the government of Mexico.'

A State Department official came up with an intriguing explanation: 'We believe there has been progress, very significant progress, on human rights in Mexico, but as a policy decision — not a legal decision — we are going to wait on a portion of new funding because we think additional progress can be made.'

The allusion to a 'legal' decision refers to the fact that, statutorily, up to 15% of Mérida Initiative funds are subject to certification that Mexico is making progress on human rights. What was not entirely clear was the nature of the 'policy decision' which led to withholding precisely that amount after having certified progress.

The State Department's decision was announced two weeks after the killing of a US national by Mexican soldiers in an unclear episode for which the Mexican authorities have successively produced three different accounts that several observers have said are strongly suggestive of an attempted cover-up gone bad (see Page 17).

Disbursement of Mérida Initiative funds has been very slow. A July report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress, said that up to the end of last March the funds allocated to the Initiative had reached US$1.3bn. Of  these, US$669.7m had been 'obligated' (that is, disbursement had been approved), but only US$121.2m had actually been spent.

Since then US$175m has been added by Congress, in late July, to the approved sum (in the 2010 supplemental appropriations act, meant chiefly to assign an extra US$60m to the war in Afghanistan). The funds were specifically earmarked for international narcotics control and law enforcement in Mexico. Supplemental appropriations bills were used similarly in 2008 and 2009.

The extension of trade and investment ties has been a constant theme behind Iran's pursuit of a stronger relationship with Latin America as a region. Though at best a mid-ranking economic power, with a GDP the size of Florida's, Tehran has sought to deploy whatever economic clout it possesses to shore up its diplomatic initiatives from Managua to Buenos Aires.    

Virtually every diplomatic sortie mounted by Tehran has sought legitimacy with some form of economic investment. For Latin American governments seeking to explain to skeptical constituencies why they should be doing business with a pariah state, the prospect of Iranian investment across a range of industries and the opening up of a potential massive export market of 65m people, boasting petrodollars to splash out on commodity and manufactured goods imports, can help to close the deal.

Newly released trade figures suggest a picture of rapidly rising commerce between Iran and regional economies. Trade between Iran and Latin America grew 209% in 2008, reaching a total of US$2.86bn last year, according to the IMF International Financial Statistics (IFS) figures. Neither Brazil nor Iran has published detailed figures of their bilateral trade, but the IFS figures reveal that bilateral trade with Brazil grew to US$1.26bn in 2008, up 88% over 2007. Trade with Argentina increased massively to US$1.12bn, from just US$30m in 2007. Overall, Latin America maintains a large trade surplus with Iran, reaching US$2.53bn in 2008.

In contrast to the close political relationship between Tehran and Caracas, Venezuela is a relatively insignificant trade partner for Iran, though trade volumes are growing.   In 2008, bilateral trade grew 31% to just US$52m. Ecuador has replaced Peru as the largest importer of Iranian goods in Latin America, and only Ecuador runs a trade deficit with Iran; its trade with Iran reached US$168m in 2008, a significant increase on the US$6m reported in 2007.  

While Iran's export capability is limited, it can offer foreign direct investment into Latin America. Venezuela has assiduously tapped Iran for investment in a range of infrastructure and industrial projects.

From Tehran's point of view, the provision of investment in key strategic sectors is intended to counterbalance the financial pressure exerted by international sanctions relating to its nuclear programme. Venezuela has been identified as an outlet for Iran to move money, obtain high-tech equipment and access the global financial system - just as, closer to home, Dubai acts as the “lungs" for Iran's economy within the Middle East.

In lockstep with its diplomatic advance, Tehran has therefore sought to endow its political relationships with sometimes tantalising investment projects, ranging from a US$350m deepwater seaport off Nicaragua's Atlantic coast to public housing construction in Venezuela and automotive assembly plants. Yet the economic linkages generally fall far short of the rhetoric of close economic partnership. These projects' significance is primarily political: to undergird the political partnership with the fabric of commerce.

Tehran has accompanied its investments with promises of aid. Nicaragua has received Iranian aid pledges for a hydro-electric dam and milk-processing plants, while Bolivia has received funds for two public health clinics, as well as a US$230m investment in two cement plants. In July 2009, Iran agreed to provide US$280m in low-interest loans to La Paz.

Ahmadinejad's eagerness to strike economic cooperation deals with Latin American states has proved controversial back home. The US$280m loan offer to Bolivia came in for criticism by Iranian MPs in August, after claims that the   government had failed to follow constitutional guidelines requiring parliamentary approval for such loans. Furthermore, Iranian decision-making, mediated by a byzantine network of interest groups, is inimical to effective follow-through on promises of financial disbursements. Ahmadinejad's' capacity to deliver on promises is compromised by domestic and international pressures.

Many of the economic agreements struck between Iran and Venezuela were announced in the midst of the plus US$100 per barrel oil prices, when Tehran had easy access to petrodollars to recycle into strategic economic projects.   The past year has removed the economic comfort zone that underwrote Tehran's largesse; in Iran's case, the need to circumnavigate an extensive array of financial sanctions has made it more difficult to apply the healing balm of its aid and investment.

The frequency of MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) is still matched by patchy delivery. Tehran has yet to overcome a credibility gap between the lofty rhetoric of anti-imperialist economic cooperation and the reality that it simply does not have access to an unlimited treasure chest to burnish its political objectives with hard cash.  

In Nicaragua, Ahmadinejad has promised some US$1bn in aid and investments, funds to be used to develop energy and agricultural sectors, infrastructure, and water purification projects in Nicaragua. Yet evidence of this promised funding is elusive. Pointedly, Iran has so far refused to forgive Nicaragua's US$152m debt.  

Key Iranian investments in Latin America

* Bolivia. Iranian investment in industrial projects in Bolivia includes dairy factories and agriculture mining and hydroelectric dams, and scholarships funding study in Iran for Bolivian students. An office of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) opened in Santa Cruz in 2009, to follow up and implement joint Iran-Bolivia energy projects.

* Ecuador. Iran is assisting in the building of two 10 MW and 15 MW power plants and has provided US$40m in loans for business development.

* Nicaragua.   Iran will loan Managua US$230m to build a dam and a hydroelectric plant over the next five years. The Export Guarantee Fund-backed of Iran loan is due to be repaid in 22 installments within 10 years at a 5% interest rate.  

* Cuba. With a US$200m credit line from the Export Development Bank of Iran, Iran's Pars Wagon Company is providing Cuba's EIGT with 550 freight wagons and 220 passenger carriages.  

The number of people working in maquiladoras rose by 1.2% in the first five months of this year, the Instituto Nacional de Estatí­sticas, Geografí­a e Informática reported.

The detailed information from Inegi does not make for happy reading. While the number of hours worked has increased by 4.4% in the first five months of this year compared with the same period of 2003, pay has only gone up by 1.7% in real terms. Worryingly, the demand is strongest for manual labour, rather than skilled labour. This indicates that the industry is still tying to compete as a cheap labour operation.  

At the end of May, the maquiladora industry employed 1.11m people, 77% of whom worked in factories in border states. The most buoyant sectors are electronic equipment, where employment rose by 24% in the year to May. Employment in the transport equipment industry was also up significantly (by 22%). Another industry in which employment rose strongly was textiles, where the number of people employed was up by 14% over the past year.

• One looming problem for Nafta is the bumper sugar harvest in Mexico. The 2003/04 crop came in at just over 5m t which was the highest figure for the past five years. Under Nafta, Mexico should be allowed to export any 'surplus' sugar it produces to the US. The US argues that the surplus should be calculated after imports of other sweeteners, notably high-fructose corn syrup, have been netted off.  

The Mexicans say that the wording of the Nafta treaty makes no mention of other sweeteners. The Cámara Nacional de la Industria Azucarera y Alcoholera says that Mexico should not need to import any more sugar this year to meet national demand.  

• Taiwanese textile companies are focusing their businesses in preparation for the elimination of US textile quotas in 2005. Companies such as Makalot Industrail, Tainan Enterprise and Roo Hsing Garment are building up their Central American production facilities which will use US produced semi-finished materials. Roo Hsing says that it will expand its production in El Salvador and Nicaragua which use US inputs and whose products can be re-exported back to the US free of tariffs.  
• The capacity utilisation index for maquiladoras hit 96% in April. In 2002 and 2003 the index had slumped to 92% because of the slowdown in the US economy. Over the eight months to April there has been a net increase of 32,645 people employed in maquiladoras. The number of maquiladoras increased by 45, as some companies brought their businesses back from China. This recovery does not, however, make up for the number of maquiladoras which have closed since 2000. The number of maquiladoras has fallen from 3,590 in 2000 to 2,810 in February this year.  
• At the end of June two companies, Kyocera from Japan announced that it would spend US$7m on expanding its cellular telephone plant in Tijuana. Hunter, a plastics company, from the US announced that they would invest US$20m in building a new plant, also in Tijuana. The Kyocera expansion should create 1,630 new jobs while the Hunter investment will create 350. Both companies are taking advantage of a tax break introduced by the state government last year which exempts companies which maintain or increase staff at their plants in the state from state taxes.