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PEOPLE PROFILE is published every Tuesday and describes the professional background of key people emerging in the political and economic scenario.

Who is Aldo Rebelo?
Aldo Rebelo is the leader of the government in the lower chamber of congress. He is also the leader of the Communist party, the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PC do B), and has been re-elected to congress for four consecutive terms. Rebelo has just been chosen by President Lula to share responsibilities with his right-hand man, José Dirceu, in the newly created ministry for political coordination and federal relations. The ministry will coordinate the government's policies with congress, the judiciary, and the states and municipalities. 

Why watch him?
Aldo Rebelo has successfully coordinated the government's agenda in congress. His work has been especially helpful in the difficult negotiations to reform the pensions system. His leadership guaranteed the approval, last September, of government's proposals fundamental to its economic policy. 

Rebelo has also been engaged in several investigative commissions since he first entered the chamber in 1990. His career actually took off when, in 1992, he unmasked the 'Uruguay Affair', triggering a wave of corruption allegations which culminated in the impeachment of President Collor de Mello. At the time, Collor de Mello used a false name in order to get a US$5m loan to refurbish his private villa on the shores of Paranoa Lake in Brasí­lia. 


The file

Born: February 1956. 

Place of birth: The town of Viçosa in the northeastern state of Alagoas.

Education: Rebelo studied Law between 1975 and 1978, however he did not complete the degree.


Public life: 
Rebelo, who is married and has one son, joined the PC do B in 1976. At the time, the party was considered illegal and was sheltered under the umbrella Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), which comprised all the opposition parties in congress. In the same year, Rebelo was elected president of the Brazilian Student's Union (UNE), organising protest rallies against the military dictatorship.

He worked as a journalist before taking up his first office as a councillor for the city of São Paulo in 1988. While in the municipal chamber he presided over the special commission that investigated irregularities in Mayor Janio Quadros's administration. Rebelo also participated in an investigation that led to the discovery of the bodies of missing people in the Perus cemetery. Some of the bodies were later identified as militants who went missing during the military dictatorship.

Rebelo was first elected to congress in 1990 for the state of São Paulo. Since then he has been re-elected three more times, the last one, in 2002, for the Amazonian state of Roraima. He participates in the international trade and agriculture commissions in congress, as well as being the president of the labour and pension commission in the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino). 

He is a firm advocate of abolishing parliamentary immunity for members of congress. As well as his role in the impeachment of Collor de Mello, Rebelo presided over the special commission that investigated the 'CBF/Nike Affair' after the World Cup in 1998. At the time, several irregularities were found in the accounts of football clubs. 

Rebelo, however, has a tendency to slip into populist-nationalist rhetoric, reminiscent perhaps of his fight against the military and his upbringing in the 1970s. He is the author of a law issued in 1999 to protect Brazilian-Portuguese from the assault of foreign languages. His recent 'Bio-security' project - defending the production and research of GM crops - condemns 'foreign interests threatening Brazil'.


Strong points:
Rebelo has a history of fighting corruption and privilege in political life in Brazil. He is trusted by both President Lula da Silva and by José Dirceu. His nomination was well received by coalition leaders and by the press and general public. During Rebelo's years in congress he forged some strong relationships with several powerful congressmen. He is also good at mending fences with old enemies. He received plaudits from the air force for defending the government's plans to purchase sixty jets.


Weak points:
Rebelo's numerous investigations brought him bitter opposition, mainly from the corrupt old-guard. His appointment is not popular with rightwing sectors of Brazilian society, which until now have kept quiet over President Lula's policies. His communist beliefs, coupled with his diatribes against 'foreign interests', are not likely to go down too well in Washington either, especially at a time when Brazil's relations with the US are growing increasingly fractious.


Prospects:
Rebelo is suitable for the job. He has proven articulate and ready to negotiate in order to get the government's proposals approved in congress. His outspoken views will probably get him into trouble from time to time. However, that is exactly what President Lula is expecting from his new minister. He needs someone with willpower and appeal, not only to do the job, but also to appease his leftwing supporters.

People Profile - Alberto Vallarino Clement, Panama

Who is he? Vallarino took over as economy minister on 1 July 2009, under the new rightwing president, Ricardo Martinelli.

Why watch him? The economy is slowing down sharply. On 24 June the outgoing administration announced that economic activity fell 2.65% in April, year-on-year. This was Panama's first economic contraction since 2003. To be fair growth in the first quarter was still positive, at 2.5%, year-on-year.

Born: 2 April 1951, Panama

Education: Graduated in industrial engineering from Cornell University, US, before going on to gain a masters in business administration (1974), also from Cornell.

Public life: Vallarino was born into one of Panama's most prominent - and wealthiest - families and is the nephew of Arnulfo Arias Madrid. Arnulfo Arias was president of Panama (1940-1, 1949-51 and for a brief spell in October 1968). Arias's widow, Mireya Moscoso, won the 1999 elections on the ticket of the Partido Arnulfista (PA) - later the Partido Pañamenista (PPA). Another uncle, Carlos, was also economy minister, under the previous Martí­n Torrijos administration before being named comptroller general.

Vallarino himself competed (unsuccessfully) in the PPA presidential primaries in 1998 and 2008.

While never far from the political scene, Vallarino had a flourishing business career. In 1988 he became CEO of Panama's leading financial group, Banistmo, overseeing a frenetic campaign of mergers and acquisitions which turned Banco del Istmo from a small local player into the largest private-sector bank in Panama. The sale of the group to HSBC for US$1.17bn in 2006 was controversial. The sale took place a month after congress had approved a law reducing the maximum capital gains tax rate from 30% to 5%. As a result of the change, the government lost US$400m, which remained with Banistmo shareholders - including Vallarino.

At the time of his appointment as economy minister, Vallarino was executive president of the Grupo Verdeazul, which has stakes in the tourism industry and with big stakes in Hotel Bristol Panamá, Hotel Bristol Buenaventura and Desarrollo Turí­stico Buenaventura.

Timeline:

1975-1988: Executive vice president of Metalforma, a bottle caps manufacturing company.

1979-1988: Managing director of Industria Nacional de Plásticos S. A.

1981-1982: President of the industrialists' association.

1982: President of the Latin American association of industrialists.

1983: President of the Panamanian exporters association.

1988: CEO of Banistmo.

1998: Competes in the party primaries for the PPA.

2006: Sells Banistmo to HSBC

2008: Competes in the party primaries for the PPA.

1 July 2009: Takes over the economy portfolio.

Strengths: As a member of the ruling elite, Vallarino is well-connected and his business acumen is indisputable: he sold Banistmo close to the top of the international business cycle. As Panama's new economy minister, he will play a key role in the US$5.2bn Panama Canal expansion project, due to be completed by 2014, which will create around 5,000 jobs.

Weaknesses: Vallarino's political clout was clear from the takeover of Banistmo by HSBC. In the run up to the deal Vallarino met President Martí­n Torrijos, whose PRD party also controlled congress. The allegation from Vallarino's critics is that he offered Torrijos his support in the referendum on the Panama Canal expansion project (which was held in late 2006) in return for a downward adjustment in the capital gains tax rate.   The tax was cut and the referendum won a resounding yes. Martinelli, also a hugely wealthy business tycoon said that “the politicians' habits of putting their personal interests, before those of the people are finished. In my government you can mess up, but you cannot steal".

Prospects: A keen proponent of the free market, Vallarino is key to implementing Martinelli's declared aim of making “Panama the best place in Latin America to do business". Vallarino's priority is to get the US congress to approve the FTA between both countries. This will be tough unless Panama makes some concessions on banking secrecy - which Martinelli has repeatedly said he will not touch.

Provided Martinelli avoids disaster, Vallarino is likely to be the right wing candidate to succeed him.

So far the Martinelli government has shown its rightwing populist credentials with the implementation of the campaign pledge to provide the elderly with monthly US$100 handouts. Vallarino may introduce a flat tax system, in an effort to reduce tax evasion and bring the informal sector into the tax net. This is in line with the US insistence that Panama take steps to increase the transparency of its tax system which is a requirement for the FTA.

Despite the April blip, the economy is in reasonable shape. The IMF said, on 1 June, that Panama is facing the global economic crisis “from a position of strength". It singled out the well-regulated banking sector, sustained fiscal consolidation and canal expansion project, which will allow Panama to preserve macroeconomic stability and continue growing during 2009, albeit at a slower pace than in recent years.

Aside from the canal expansion, the 24 June congressional approval of a revised budget, which allows the fiscal deficit to rise to 3% of GDP (up from 1%), will also provide Vallarino with leeway. The law was part of an agreement unveiled on 2 June by Martinelli and Torrijos, which expands the anti-crisis plan announced in January by Torrijos to free up funds of US$400m from the central bank, US$210m from the Andean development corporation (CAF), and US$230m in six-month loans from the central bank.

In mid-June a prison riot claimed 22 lives — the second such episode in less than 10 months — and prompted a massive response from the government, accompanied by claims that NGOs and opposition parties were somehow seeking to use the episode to destabilise the government. These developments brought again to the fore the problem of massive prison overcrowding and the inability to control them that has fostered official tolerance of armed prison ‘mafias'.

The riot (or, according to the authorities, a clash between rival gangs of inmates) broke out on 12 June in the Rodeo I prison in Guatire, Miranda state, close to Caracas. The precise sequence of events is unclear, but it soon spread to the nearby Rodeo II prison, where only a month earlier inmates had briefly held hostage 21 prison officials. Interior Minister Tareck el Aissami initially reported that three inmates had been killed in Rodeo I, then two days later raised this to 19 (and finally to 22, including a visitor).

In an attempt to prevent a repetition of the September 2010 riot in Tocorón prison, in Aragua state, that left 16 dead and dozens injured, the government deployed 3,500 troops of the national guard (GNB), a paramilitary police force, and a contingent of 400 paratroopers.

On 17 June this force moved into both prisons. Virtually no resistance was encountered in Rodeo I and the authorities began to transfer large numbers of inmates to the Yare II prison in central Miranda. In Rodeo II, the troops moved in after cutting off the power and water supply and initially secured the surrender of inmates lodged in the area known as the Anexo, close to the entrance. They then began to search and seize weapons, reporting an initial haul of seven rifles, five shotguns, three carbines, a submachinegun, 20 pistols, four revolvers and eight grenades.

However, their attempt to move further in was met by gunfire, from some 1,000 inmates, purportedly resisting under duress from a group of about 50 hard-core gang members (known as pranes). The government reported that two members of the GNB had been killed and 19 had been injured. The commander of the GNB, General Luis Motta, said that one inmate had been killed.

A stalemate ensued, broken only on 21 June, when a group of about 80 inmates who had taken refuge in administrative areas and the infirmary turned themselves in. The following day, leading pranes began direct talks with the authorities. In line with previous practice they agreed that, in exchange for the establishment of ‘dialogue tables', they would lay down their arms on 23 June and allow the authorities access to the whole prison. Come the day, though, all they did was hand over the decomposing bodies of four dead inmates (circumstances of whose deaths were not disclosed). Up to the time of writing, the authorities had not been able to recover full control of Rodeo II.

Jointly, the Rodeo I and II prisons had held 4,711 inmates, close to a tenth of the country's entire prison population. The exact size of the prison population is a matter of controversy. In a report to the national assembly last February, el Aissami put the end-2010 figure at 44,520; in her own testimony to the assembly, public ombudsman Gabriela Ramírez said it was 43,267; the Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones (OVP), an NGO, said in its 2010 report that it totalled 44,582; and Luis Gerardo Gabaldón, a criminologist invited to speak in early June at a seminar organised by the Consejo Superior Penitenciario (CSP, the body set up in 2008 to guide official policy on prisons), put the figure at 49,224.

The capacity of the prisons has been put between 14,000 (Gabaldón) and 17,655 (Ramírez). The relative number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, according to el Aissami, rose from 86 in 2008 to 154 in 2010. Gabaldón cited the 2010 figure as 170. Most experts agree that close to half of the people in the prison system should have been released, because the legal term for holding them has expired (either because they have not had their preliminary indictment hearing, or because their trials have been dragging on for more than two years). Correcting this is a major problem, as the judiciary relies on only 1,700 prosecutors, 1,900 judges and 874 public defenders.

The prison service also lacks enough personnel to ensure full control of the prisons. In Rodeo II, for example, the guard-inmate ratio in 2009 was 1:12 (and the worst recorded case in the country was the La Pica prison in Monagas in 2006 — 1:63). In such circumstances, guards have allowed prison gangs to arm themselves to impose their own brand of order. Humberto Prado, director of the OVP (one of those accused by officials of seeking to destabilise the government) said on 14 June, ‘The prison population is armed, not because the weapons fall from heaven, but because there is a perverse arms trafficking mechanism in the country, responsibility for which is shared by the national guard (GNB), in charge of external security, and the interior ministry, in charge of internal security.'

On 23 June María Mercedes Berthé, director of the fundamental rights division of the public prosecution service, announced that arrest warrants had been issued against seven interior ministry officials and national guard members on charges of corruption, facilitating the supply of arms and explosives, drug trafficking and criminal conspiracy.

Death & injury in Venezuela's prisons

Years	Killed	Injured
1999-2006	2,742	9,039
2007	498	1,023
2008	422	854
2009	366	635
2010	476	967
2011 –QI	124	466

Source: OVP

Status of prison population in 2010

Total population	44,852*
In trial process	30,360
- Undergoing trial	29.42%
- Awaiting preliminary hearing	24.75%
- Under investigation	20.83%

*The interior & justice ministry puts the figure at 44,520; the public ombudsman at 43,267.

Source: OVP.

Development: On 8 July the federal police arrested 24 people linked to the 2005 vote-buying scandal involving President Lula da Silva's ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores.

Significance: The arrests, which snared a high-profile financier and a former mayor of São Paulo, will remind voters of the several corruption scandals that have swirled around the ruling PT since it came to power in 2002. However, the scandal is unlikely to have much impact on the government in the upcoming municipal polls on 5 October.

The so-called mensalão (monthly payments) scandal erupted in 2005 when it emerged that the PT had bought votes from legislators. The scandal forced some high-level resignations (most notably Lula's chief of staff, José Dirceu) and tainted the government, although the president's strong personal popularity rating remained remarkably unaffected by the affair.

Among those arrested was the banker Daniel Dantas, head of the Opportunity Group; Naji Nahas, an investor/financier; the former mayor of São Paulo, Celso Pitta; and Marcos Valerio, a businessman with strong links to the PT and to Dirceu (for several years the PT president) in particular. They are accused of the misuse of public funds for the purposes of congressional bribery.

The investigation has been running for four years and arrest warrants are still pending against a further 56 people.

According to local press sources, in the six years of Lula's presidency there have been more detentions for political corruption than in previous decades. In 2007 an estimated 2,800 people were detained in 188 police operations. To date in 2008, 1,700 people have been arrested in 97 operations. The government claims this is testament to increased transparency and accountability under President Lula, a claim opposition parties strongly rebuff.

Development: On 5 May Mexican billionaire and the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, in Honduras for a government-organised investment fair, expressed an interest in President Porfirio Lobo's proposed model cities.

Significance:  Slim knows a cheap business opportunity when he sees one and the Hondurans will be hoping that other investors will take his cue. The Lobo government is hoping to capture US$15bn (the equivalent of annual GDP) in new investment in the ‘Honduras is open for Business' event. 

Key points:

• The US undersecretary for international trade, Francisco Sánchez, who attended the fair in the country's main business hub, San Pedro Sula, said that the US government "recognised the important steps taken by the Honduran government to improve the investment climate". The government recently approved five new investment-promotion laws. The US has long been the country's main trade and investment partner, with some 200 US firms operating there. 

• President Lobo yesterday congratulated the judiciary for its move to annul corruption charges against the ousted former president, Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), which should clear the path for the country's reinsertion into regional forums. The hardline president of the supreme court, Jorge Rivera, said earlier this week that the appeals court ruling was "a happy coincidence" for the government. The equally conservative public ministry, which originally levied the charges, is mulling an appeal.

• Slim's telecoms operator, América Móvil, recently announced the acquisition of 100% of its Irish rival Digicel's operations in El Salvador and Honduras, and will also begin operating in Costa Rica by year-end.

Against the backdrop of a turf war between drug gangs that killed at least a dozen people in Rio, Brazil's senate is considering a bill severely restricting gun ownership which - most unusually - has cleared committee stage. 

On 17 July a bicameral congressional committee unanimously approved a bill introducing drastic curbs on gun ownership, as a first step towards a complete ban on private handgun ownership by 2005. This is a breakthrough: more than 50 pieces of draft legislation restricting gun ownership ran into dead ends in congress over the past decade, largely due to the lobbying efforts of the gun manufacturers (led by Taurus, a strong contributor to the campaign funds of congressional candidates). 

The provisions 

The draft 'disarmament' law brings together features from a number of the initiatives blocked since 1997. Chief among them are: 

-The minimum age limit for gun ownership is raised from 18 to 25. The applicant will have to undergo training in the safe use of guns and pass a psychological test. 

-Gun registration passes from state to federal jurisdiction. 

-There will be an amnesty for illegal guns, sweetened by compensation for the firearms surrendered. 

-Bearing guns in public places will be banned; infringement will be punished with imprisonment. 

-A referendum on an outright ban on private gun ownership is to be held in 2005 [a recent survey by Sensus shows 63.6% of respondents in favour of such a ban]. 

The problem 

Brazil has one of the highest homicide rates in the world: 26 per 100,000. The rate rose sharply in the biggest cities: to 54.2 per 100,000 in Rio, and 50.7 per 100,000 in São Paulo. Nationwide, the homicide rate among young people in the 19-25 bracket is 150 per 100,000. As a point of comparison, in the US rates range from 9 to 11 per 100,000. Seen from another angle, over the past decade almost 270,000 Brazilians have been murdered. 

Guns play an important role in this. Between 1979 and 2000, deaths caused by firearms have more than trebled; the WHO reports that this has overtaken car accidents as the main cause of violent deaths. According to one police estimate, there may be about 8m guns in private hands in Brazil, of which only 5m are legally registered. The promoter of the new gun law, congressman Luis Eduardo Greenhalgh, says that in São Paulo there are about 1.5m guns in circulation, of which only 1,180 are registered. 

Most of the illegal guns are smuggled in from Paraguay ? but the bulk of these are actually of Brazilian manufacture, legally exported and then sent back. The efficacy of restrictions on gun ownership is called into question by many who note that criminals are unlikely to apply for registration, and that the new rules do nothing to curb a very profitable gunrunning trade. 

Statistics are deployed on both sides of the argument. Police figures show that 95% of guns used in crimes are illegally held. However, as pointed out by the sociologist Antônio Rangel Bandeira, of Viva Rio, a civic organisation that campaigns for gun control, of all guns seized by police at crime scenes, 36% were originally bought legally - though most were later sold on illegally, or stolen, which made them illegally held guns at the time the crime was committed. He points out, also, that the transit from legally to illegally owned takes place on a grand scale: in one year in Rio, 10,000 guns legally bought by private security firms simply 'disappeared'. A telling detail: privately employed security guards outnumber the police in Rio.

Seasoned PAN politicians brought in to pilot priority reforms — but these are threatened by the party in congress.

The new cabinet reshuffle conducted by President Vicente Fox on 2 September was quite explicitly intended to add political nous and weight to his team, chiefly in order to secure approval by congress of at least one of the priority reforms. Fox replaced energy minister Ernesto Martens and environment minister Ví­ctor Lichtinger - both representative of the independent talent Fox prided himself on having attracted into government. In both cases, the replacements were seasoned politicians with a reputation as skilful negotiators.

To drive home the point, Fox's new communications czar, Alfonso Durazo [WR-03-30], said that the changes `privileged politics as the guiding axis of an ever more efficient, sensitive and committed government action.' Foreseeing the criticism that the reshuffle marked the end of Fox's `total quality' criterion for cabinet appointments, Durazo said that the new appointees not only have a `broad political track record' but also `personal experience in the areas entrusted to them.'

The energy ministry went to Felipe Calderón, a man with a long track record in the ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN): he served successively as secretary-general and president of the party, then as leader of its legislative bloc in the chamber of deputies. Most recently he had been serving as head of Banobras, the state's public works bank. The environment portfolio was entrusted to Alberto Cárdenas, former governor of Jalisco and most recently a member of the PAN's national executive.

Explaining half a reshuffle
When he announced the changes, Durazo heaped praise, on Fox's behalf, on the departing Martens, adding that his replacement had been decided in order to give an extra boost to the energy sector and `promote the necessary reforms'. Opening up the energy sector to greater private participation is one of the two reforms Fox considers vital to the Mexican economy.

Much less clear is the change at the environment ministry. Durazo laconically reported that Fox had decided to `remove' Lichtinger. Actually, for undisclosed reasons he decided to conduct a major purge of the whole environment area.

Apart from Lichtinger, he dismissed environmental protection undersecretary Raúl Arriaga (no replacement yet announced), and the federal environmental prosecutor, José Campillo. The latter was also replaced by a seasoned politician: José Luis Luege, leader of the PAN in Mexico city.

For the record: with the last two ministerial changes, the total since Fox took office just under three years ago has risen to seven.

The only hint Fox had given that another reshuffle was coming was his admission in his state-of-the-nation address that he was aware of `demands regarding greater efficiency in the government and disagreements within the team.'

Threat from within the PAN
Fox may have added political weight and skill to his cabinet, but his quest for congressional support for his reforms may stumble on a very vulnerable political flank: his own party's congressional representatives. Last week the president of the lower chamber's ruling board, Juan de Dios Castro, a panista, appeared to have undone all the work put into striking an agreement with the opposition Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). He did so by scheduling a session to debate the lifting of the parliamentary immunity enjoyed by PRI senator Ricardo Aldana, to be tried on corruption charges.

Castro, who served as Fox's legal adviser before winning a seat in congress, is close to the panista faction led by senator and former presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos, an outspoken critic of Fox's performance in government. He says that he is only acting in accordance with a recommendation of the chamber's steering committee, after receiving a formal request from the state prosecutor. Aldana has been accused of involvement in the case known as `Pemexgate', centred on the irregular transfer of funds from the Pemex workers' union to the PRI campaign funds in 2000.

Sources close to both the PAN and the PRI say that Castro cannot but have known that his action would clash with an informal agreement between PRI chief Elba Esther Gordillo and the government to delay action on `Pemexgate' until the reforms were approved. Indeed, this agreement is said to have been a key factor in the near-agreement reached between both sides on the energy reform.

Gordillo's immediate, some say inevitable reaction was to warn that the understandings with the government were in jeopardy. She also started mounting an opposition to Castro's move on the grounds that it had breached lower-chamber procedural norms. Several analysts say that the prospect of Aldana losing his immunity has greatly weakened Gordillo's position vis-í -vis the PRI hardliners and other rivals within the party.

The episode may not only harm the government's reform plans, but also the PRI's public image, as it shows the party closing ranks, as in the past, over the shadier of its practices.

The White House's Drug Policy Office reports that while coca cultivation has increased this year in Bolivia, this had been more than offset by the decline achieved in Peru. The area cultivated with coca in Bolivia is said to have increased from 24,400 hectares in 2002 to 28,450ha in June this year, while in Peru it had shrunk from 36,600ha to 31,150ha. This adds up to a decline of 2.2%. 

In September, the UNODC's more comprehensive survey showed a 21% increase in both countries combined. It should be kept in mind, also, that the UNODC's estimate of the cultivated surface in Peru in 2002, the starting point for these calculations, is 27% bigger than that of the US. The US figures are based on a `sampling' of satellite imagery.

It is usually President Hugo Chávez who first denounces perceived external threats to Venezuela. Last week, though, it was one of his oldest enemies, retired General Fernando Ochoa Antich, who was warning against the `strategic imbalance' arising out of Colombia's most recent batch of defence purchases.

On 21 February, as Spanish premier José Marí­a Aznar began a two-day visit to Colombia, that country's defence minister, Jorge Alberto Uribe Echeverrí­a, announced the purchase from Spain of `two artillery batteries and two motorised squadrons'. He said the government had not yet determined `the precise number of artillery pieces and armoured vehicles'. The gap was filled in by the newsmagazine Cambio, which cited defence sources to report that Colombia would be spending about US$100m on 40 secondhand AMX-30 tanks.

Uribe later added that Colombia would also be taking up an earlier Spanish offer to donate two Casa troop-carrying aircraft. All this, he said, would be for `eminently defensive' purposes and to `combat drug trafficking, terrorism and gunrunning.'

`Wrong kind of threat'
In Caracas, Ochoa Antich (who was defence minister at the time of Chávez 's abortive uprising against President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, and later foreign minister), described the Colombian announcement as `surprising'. He said that Venezuela's superiority in armoured vehicles would disappear with the new Colombian acquisitions, and that this would complete a process which began when Colombia neutralised, with the acquisition of Mirage fighter-bombers, the superiority Venezuela had enjoyed in the air.

According to Ochoa Antich, with the recent acquisition of US helicopters and defence materiel, Colombia had `somehow broken the strategic balance which had always existed' with Venezuela. That this should be happening at this point in time, he said, is `inconvenient'.

The former defence minister says that the Chávez régime does pose a threat to Colombia, and the region as a whole, but not of the kind that can be contained with the sort of equipment Colombia is now buying. `The real threat to the region which Hugo Chávez represents,' he said, `is fundamentally a political threat, of ideological and economic support for the subversive movements of Latin America.'

Though Ochoa Antich's statements have been dismissed by Venezuelan government officials as `the rantings of an old man', in Colombia they were taken seriously enough for Uribe to assert publicly that there is `no international defence motivation' behind the acquisitions he had announced.

For years, the combination of the long-ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and the Mexican military kept a tight lid on the `dirty war' that took place between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. Last year, the first prosecutions were launched against officials accused of involvement in `disappearances' during that period. Now the defence minister, General Clemente Vega, wants the lid put back on again for the sake of `national reconciliation'.

The Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, (CNDH, the official human rights commission) puts the number of dirty-war disappearances at 275. The cumbersomely named `special prosecution office for political and social movements of the past', Femospp in the Spanish abbreviation, created in January 2002, reckons that the number was close to 1,500.

Vega's advocacy of an amnesty for members of the police and military who committed `excesses' passed largely unnoticed as public attention continued to focus on what commentators are already describing as the culebrón (soap opera), of the scandal surrounding the Mexico City corruption videos. It appeared in an interview in the latest issue of the magazine Milenio Semanal.

The general argues that abuses were committed by both state agents and guerrillas during the dirty war. `I recall,' he says, `that at the time the President, who was José López Portillo [1976-82], offered an amnesty law to all those people who went over to the other side because they wanted to struggle politically and all that [...] That remedied one part of the problem. I'm not sure how much of the same can now be applied to the other side.'

The one thing he is certain about is that those acting in furtherance of their duty should be given special treatment. `I believe,' he says, `that one should specify and differentiate what the army did under orders, in the cases of the guerrillas of Lucio Cabañas and Genaro Vázquez Rojas. I must say that there we lost many people in ambushes and many sons of soldiers were orphaned.' Part of Vega's case is that in the last few years an `intense effort' has been put into getting the armed forces to adopt as a basic value the respect for human rights. The subject, he said, is a mandatory part of the curricula at military academies and in the barracks.

CUBA | Oil find inconclusive. Repsol-YPF has found evidence of oil in the Yamagua-I field 30 kilometres off Cuba's northern coast (one of six it is exploring). However, the find fell short of commercial viability. The oil company says it believes there may be better-quality oil at greater depths than the 3,300 metres drilled in this first well. Repsol-YPF had classified Cuba as a 'high risk' prospect with only a 20% chance of striking oil.

Cuba currently produces about 80,000 barrels per day. In order to satisfy domestic demand, Cuba imports 53,000bpd of oil from Venezuela (on preferential terms). Last year Cuba produced 1m tonnes of heavy crude (equivalent to about 21,917bdp) in the central onshore region; officials say this could rise this year to 1.7mt (37,260bpd)

HONDURAS | Tourism grows as hard-currency earner. Earnings from tourism in the first half of the year reached US$227m, putting the sector on track to meet a target of US$455m for the year as a whole. Last year tourism earnings increased by 16% to about US$400m, which put it in third place among Honduras's hard-currency earners, after the maquiladora (assembly) sector and remittances by expatriates - each of which earns about US$1bn a year.

GUATEMALA | Low growth predicted this year. Guatemala's GDP is likely to grow this year by about 2.6%, according to the private thinktank Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales (Así­es). Dynamism will come mainly from external demand, it says. The predicted economic growth rate matches Guatemala's population growth, which means that there will be no per capita growth.

COSTA RICA | Growth outlook downgraded. The central bank has downgraded its economic growth forecast for this year from 4.4% to 3.9% (about 1.4% per capita). Bank president Francisco de Paula blamed adverse international conditions (chiefly higher prices for imported oil, grains and steel), and the 32% slump in sales by the country's leading exporter, Intel.

Spillover from Colombia's internal war into neighbouring countries is a fact, according to Colombia's top military commander. The countries most concerned about it, he said, are Ecuador and Panama. Cooperation with Venezuela on this matter could be better, he suggested - as a leading Colombian politician called for international verification of a threatening arms buildup by Venezuela.

General Carlos Alberto Ospina, commander of Colombia's military forces, delivered a public assessment of the spillover on 22 October. He said, 'It is a secret to nobody that the illegal armed groups are surreptitiously using the territories of neighbouring countries as places of refuge and bases for the criminal traffic in drugs. From there they harass, kidnap and murder civilians. Each one of these countries, apart from facing their own internal crisis, has its own vision of the threat which the Colombians are facing.' His summary:

• 'Ecuador and Panama are the countries most concerned about the insecurity of regions bordering on Colombia.'
• 'Brazil, though it has reacted to the negative impact of the conflict, does not have great fears of a possible spillover that might endanger its national security.'
• 'Peru is permanently strengthening its military and security cooperation with Colombia, because it perceives direct repercussions of the measures adopted in Colombia.'
• 'With Venezuela we are coordinating very transcendental plans, but we must still go much deeper.'

The Venezuelan angle
Days earlier, Colombian senator Manuel Velázquez, president of the upper chamber's foreign affairs committee, had denounced an alleged 'arms race' launched by Venezuela, citing an otherwise unreported purchase of missiles, and called on the OAS and the UN to verify the situation. The Venezuelan government has denied this: the only significant recent purchase it has announced is that of Russian helicopters for deployment along the Colombian border.

Strengthening that border has become a priority since the late-September killing of five soldiers and a civilian engineer, supposedly by intruders from Colombia. Codena, Venezuela's national security council, has recommended the creation of a third military 'theatre of operations', probably to be sited in Elorza, in the state of Apure, roughly at the centre of the 2,000-kilometre border. Venezuelan and Colombian security forces recently took part in a joint operation to rescue a Venezuelan bacteriologist who had been kidnapped by Colombians and was being held in a rural area close to the Venezuelan city of San Cristóbal, capital of the western border state of Táchira.

Ecuador's border with Colombia has been the main topic of discussion during a visit last week by General Jack Gardner, commander of US Army South, the 'executive agent' of the US Southern Command. It was Gardner's first visit since he took over USARSO about a year ago. Over the last few months there has been an increase in reports of crossborder incursions by Colombian guerrillas, under the pressure of the Colombian military's southward offensive, codenamed Plan Patriota [WR-04-12].

“Temporality is until our death. We are here legally, elected by congress."

Guillermo Castro Dáger, second president of Ecuador's supreme court since December, when congress replaced the old court in a controversial procedure many consider unconstitutional.

“Haiti has been suffering a tsunami for 200 years."

Celso Amorim, Brazil's foreign minister, urging donors not to be sidetracked from their commitment to aid Haiti.

“I would like to be remembered as the president who resolved the problems of conflicts over land, the problems of violence that can even cause many deaths and grievances."

Vicente Fox, president of Mexico, while admitting that in Chiapas alone, where he was speaking, there are 13 areas officially designated as at high risk of violent land disputes.

All is not well on the peacemaking front in Colombia. The paramilitary leaders have greeted the approval, in the penultimate reading, of the controversial 'justice and peace' bill with a reiteration of their position that it is an unsatisfactory basis for their demobilisation. At the other end of the ideological spectrum, the guerrillas of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) have rejected the recent overtures conveyed by the ambassadors of Brazil, Venezuela and Spain. The Farc, meanwhile, is loudly proclaiming the failure of the government's 'Plan Patriota' offensive.

Salvatore Mancuso, the 'demobilised' former leader of the paramilitary Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) who has stayed on as a negotiator in order to avoid arrest, said in an interview published on 17 April by the newsmagazine Semana that the negotiations with the government 'are in their most critical phase'. 

He added, 'Make no mistake: the commanders of the AUC are determined to seek peace. But you can be sure that when they say that, if the conditions are not right for reinsertion, they will return to the jungle, they are not joking.' He was echoing the words of AUC spokesman 'Ernesto Báez' a week earlier, to the effect that the paramilitary might 'return to the jungle' (volver al monte).

On 12 April the constitutional committees of both chambers of congress approved, in the penultimate statutory reading, the 67-article 'peace and justice' bill which establishes 'alternatives to prison' for demobilised fighters. The bill will now go to a final debate by the plenum of both chambers in two weeks' time.

One unexpected development was that, two days later, the Autodefensas Campesinas del Casanare (ACC), a paramilitary group that has remained apart from the negotiations between the AUC and the government, announced its satisfaction with the bill, saying that it 'opened up paths of hope'. The ACC is reckoned to have a few hundred fighters; the government broke off contact with it because of its persistent turf war with the Bloque Centauros (BC), affiliated with the AUC.

On 12 April the Farc guerrillas issued a communiqué claiming that the government's 'Plan Patriota' offensive had reached its 'maximum objective coordinates' without having anything to show for it, and that the jungle heliports and intelligence balloons would 'remain there as lasting monuments to militaristic obstinacy'. 

The Farc has continued to stage attacks against the military under its proclaimed 'strategic shift', but these have been declining in intensity.

On 15 April the ELN, in a communiqué published in its fortnightly magazine Insurrección, said that the Uribe government's 'war strategy' prevented any resumption of peace negotiations. 

It said that the publicly announced prior conditions for renewed negotiations did not allow any movement forward, and noted that the government was continuing to leave out of the agenda 'the proposals for a political solution to the internal conflict which the guerrillas have made'.

Against a backdrop of increasing violence, including more aggressive raids by the UN 'stabilisation' force, OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza has conceded that the electoral calendar may have to be amended. The only 'untouchable' date, he said, was the scheduled handover of power to an elected government on 7 February 2006.

Insulza turned up in Haiti for a 48-hour visit on 6-7 July and pointedly attended the opening of a new voter registration centre. So far, only about 200,000 (of an estimated 4.5m voters) have registered, even though registration centres have been functioning since April. At the end of his visit Insulza conceded that the deadline for registration would have to be extended from 31 July to 1 September. He hazarded that by then, if new centres continued to open at a rapid pace, a 'reasonable' number could be achieved.

Public attention was gripped on the day of Insulza's arrival by a new deployment of Minustah troops in Cité Soleil, where they engaged in a gunfight that ended with five gunmen dead. Haitian Police Chief Léon Charles said he was '80% certain' that one of the dead was their main target: gang leader Emmanuel (Dread) Wilme, though he left open the possibility that his body might have been removed by his followers. A Minustah spokesman said this remained uncorroborated. Certainly his followers were convinced: on 9 July they turned out in the hundreds to parade in Dread Wilme's funeral procession.

Last week Minustah's Chilean contingent reported that it had succeeded in pacifying Cap Haí¯tien, to the point that only one armed group, reputedly 75 strong, was still operational.

Headlines were made by the latest victims in a string of kidnappings attributed to the pro-Aristide camp: two well-known doctors. Less publicised was the background evidence of continuing lesser incidents of violence. Ali Besnaci, head of the local contingent of Médecins sans Frontií¨res (MSF), said on 5 July that the number of people treated for gunshot wounds at their clinic had been increasing rapidly. He spoke of a recent inflow of 30 cases in a single day. Since the clinic was set up in December last year, MSF has treated 861 people injured by gunfire.

Reginald Boulos, president of the Haitian chamber of commerce and industry, claimed last week that this increase in violence was being directed from South Africa by former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He said he had 'precise information' that a team of 'ten South African mercenaries specialised in urban guerrilla warfare' had been smuggled into Haiti via the Dominican Republic to destabilise the country.

Hurricane impact
Nature made its contribution to worsening the plight of the Haitians: Hurricane Dennis cut through Haiti last week leaving a dozen dead aswell as widespread damage. On 8 July the authorities reported that 11 people were known to have been killed, three were unaccounted for and 20 had been injured. Also, more than 200 houses had been destroyed and almost 15,000 people had been otherwise affected by the hurricane.

Civil Protection Chief Dieufort Desloges said that this was still a very provisional tally, as the assessment of affected areas was still continuing over the weekend. One of the most affected was Grand Goave, where five people were killed.

 

Hurricane Stan, which swept through the north of Central America and the south of Mexico last week, has claimed at least 757 lives (most likely more) and forced the evacuation of at least 300,000 people. Hardest hit was Guatemala, which accounts for 86% of the known fatalities and just under a third of the people known to have been affected.

The Guatemalan death toll has been rising throughout the week to 652, as rescue teams reached towns that had been engulfed by mudslides - like Panabaj and Tzanchaj near Santiago Atitlán, and Tacaná near San Marcos, which jointly accounted for just over half of the known fatalities. While up to 10 October the official tally of people unaccounted for was 384, estimates of the numbers of those who may have perished under mudslides go as high as 3,000. President Oscar Berger has told the public to brace themselves for a toll which may well prove 'catastrophic'. It has certainly already dwarfed that of hurricane Mitch, which in 1998 killed 268 and affected 110,000.

The next-hardest-hit has been El Salvador with at least 70 fatalities (some of them due to the simultaneous eruption of the Ilamatepec volcano in Santa Ana). Mexico, where the high winds landed as a force one hurricane, suffered 24 fatalities and evacuated 140,000 (an indication of its greater relative preparedness). Nicaragua had reported 11 fatalities by midweek. 

Strong winds and storms are the natural disasters that claim most lives in Latin America, far outstripping earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

 

Nine Latin American countries took up Mexico's invitation to send their foreign ministers to hammer out a joint response to the hardening of US immigration laws and the accompanying border security measures. They avoided any direct mention of 'the wall' but did hone in on the provision of the Sensenbrenner amendment which would make criminals of all illegal immigrants already in the US. Their first step will be the establishment of a committee to coordinate lobbying against US Senate approval of the bill approved in December by the House.

The foreign ministers of the nine countries* met in Mexico City on 9 January. Their joint communiqué includes both obliquely critical elements and positive ones. They say that all immigrants 'regardless of their migratory status [are due] full protection of their human rights [and] full observance of the applicable labour legislation'. The immigrants, they emphasise, 'are not criminals and should not be treated as such'. Attention to the status of those already in the US is deemed 'indispensable', and 'regularisation' is urged.

The ministers also stated that 'an essential element to achieve migratory processes that are legal, safe, orderly and respectful of human rights [is] the establishment of temporary worker schemes'. This dovetails with the proposal which President George W Bush made during his reelection campaign and reiterated at the time the current legislation was being debated - but which the House of Representatives chose to leave until some time in the future.

The nine-nation group explicitly left open the possibility that others might enlist in their joint campaign. Ecuador took up the invitation on 11 January - though by then one of the original 10, El Salvador, appeared to have taken fright. President Elí­as Antonio Saca started stating publicly that it was thanks to his foreign minister's efforts that the joint stance was to coax the US into changing its attitude using diplomatic means (though nobody had suggested any other approach). He also broadly hinted that he would be satisfied with an extension of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) enjoyed by 248,000 of the 648,000 Salvadoreans illegally in the US, which expires on 9 September.

A counterpoint to Saca's step backwards was provided by Costa Rican president Abel Pacheco who, on 10 January, explicitly laid into 'the wall'. 'I find it strange,' he said, 'that people as wise as those in the US should think that they will halt [illegal immigration] with a wall [...] With the money they are going to spend on the wall it would be better for them to pay better prices for our products - then we would not go over there; it is horrible to go to another country.'

The US ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, did not take kindly to Washington receiving the kind of lecturing he and his peers regularly dole out. On 13 January he described criticism of 'the wall' as 'irresponsible', adding: 'We do not expect Mexico to support every security measure we take, but we do trust that our neighbours will respect our right to take such measures in our own territory.' 

*Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

The dispute between Nicaragua and Colombia over maritime jurisdictions in the Caribbean has become more acrimonious as a result of Colombia's reaction to control measures implemented by the Nicaraguan navy. At issue is not so much the alleged incursions being verified by the Colombians in mid-March [WR-06-12], but an earlier Nicaraguan arrest of a trawler in waters close to the San Andrés and Providencia archipelago.

The trawler in question, the Capitán Jared, was actually Nicaraguan; what irked the Colombians was the action by a Nicaraguan naval vessel in waters it considers its own. The arrest took place on 21 February; Bogotá dashed off a protest note about the arrest on 1 March.

On 5 April the Nicaraguan foreign ministry issued a communiqué stating: 'The action carried out by the Nicaraguan naval force was justified under international law, inasmuch as it involved a Nicaraguan fishing vessel and took place in waters that are Nicaraguan according to history, geography and international law.' It added that in the area where the trawler was arrested 'there is no established boundary between the two nations in the Caribbean Sea'.

Two days later the Colombian government replied publicly in a communiqué that said: 'The ministry of foreign relations rejects in its entirety both the communiqué issued by the government of Nicaragua on 5 April 2006 and the note to which it alludes [...] The outrageous pretensions and the attitudes of the government of Nicaragua constitute a flagrant violation of the most elementary principles of international law and of the practices of states.'

In diplomatic terms, this is very strong language. There has been no indication of any kind of follow-up being considered by the Colombian government other than its earlier announcement of stepped-up vigilance by its navy.

A strong blow to Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega, in the form of damnation with very faint praise, has come from none other that his brother Humberto, who commanded the army from the revolution until 1995, five years after the Sandinistas were swept from power in elections. He said the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) was no longer recognisable as the organisation that had toppled the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979.

In an interview published by the newspaper La Prensa, retired General Humberto Ortega said that the Frente Sandinista of 1979 was 'a true front, in terms of alliances and organic components'. That FSLN, he said, played an historic role - 'and later, as government, started acquiring other connotations'. Nowadays he sees the FSLN as an organisation which has developed 'a very particular profile as a party of the left, of radical leanings [and] a fairly orthodox manner of functioning' ['orthodox', in this context, carrying the connotation of doctrinaire].

'What remained,' he said, 'was the almost direct, vertical control by the top leadership, and particularly the leadership of Daniel Ortega, over a Sandinista base which, because it is popular and very poor, has always been very backward, with many limitations in the cultural and political aspects.'

Asked how his brother had managed to retain the leadership of the FSLN, the general attributed it to his persistence and 24-hour devotion to the job. Humberto Ortega resigned his membership of the FSLN in 1991 in order to stay on as commander of the army, which lost its own Sandinista label to become the national army, and is credited with having transformed it into an apolitical, professional force. When he retired in 1995 he did not rejoin the party.

Right now he does not know who he will vote for in the 5 November elections. 'We must vote for the interests of the nation,' he said, 'and not for the interests of a specific party. [Otherwise] we will later regret it.' 

He said he had been a friend of the late Herty Lewites, who he described as 'a magnificent candidate'. This did not sound like a ringing endorsement of his brother's candidacy.

He went there looking to consolidate US support for a free trade agreement, but when he left Washington President Leonel Fernández had more than he had bargained for. Not only did he receive the wholehearted support of President George W. Bush for implementing Cafta-DR as soon as possible, but also the Dominican Republic is now the most likely compromise candidate to break the impasse in the UN General Assembly for a seat on the Security Council.

Fernández met Bush for a 45-minute long talk in Washington on 24 October. It is not clear whether they broached the issue of the deadlock between Venezuela and Guatemala for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council (WR-06-41) but two days later, while still in the US, Fernández received a call from the Venezuelan foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, proposing that the Dominican Republic stand for the seat. Later in the day Fernández met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an unscheduled meeting; Rice expressed no opposition to a Dominican candidacy. Venezuela has also approached Bolivia about standing for the seat but the US is sure to prefer the Dominican option.

The Dominican Republic is already in the process of campaigning to replace Peru when it vacates its seat on the Security Council at the end of 2007, with Dominican officials having visited a number of countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia to seek support for its bid. Fernández belongs to a select group of Latin American heads of state to enjoy a decent rapport with both Bush and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez . He is a keen supporter of both Cafta-DR and Venezuela's PetroCaribe initiative.