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The ruling Concertación alliance is celebrating polls which suggest that it has overcome the fall in popularity caused by the corruption scandals. The risk is that bipartisan cooperation on major reforms may cease. 

Two separate opinion surveys (by the polling firms CEP and Cerc) show the approval ratings of both the government and President Ricardo Lagos up to 52%. This restores the level of support Lagos and the Concertación last enjoyed in December 2000. Focusing on individual parties, the CEP survey shows the Christian Democrats (DC) recovering their position as the best supported one, pushing the rightwing Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) back into second place. 

This, plus the fact that the CEP survey also showed support for UDI's Joaquín Lavín (frontrunner in the future presidential stakes) slightly down, was gleefully celebrated in Concertación circles - until cooler minds began to point out that the swing was not decisive, but that it could nonetheless have negative consequences for the government. 

UDI's policy dilemma 

The greatest risk is that the UDI may abandon its policy of cooperating with the government on major reforms. UDI leader Pablo Longueira adopted this policy in January, when the government was under heavy pressure due to the corruption scandals. He did so against considerable opposition from UDI hardliners, who saw no reason why they should not take full advantage of the Concertación's weakness and 'go for the kill'. 

Now Longueira's critics are interpreting the recent polls as a sign that the policy of cooperation yielded no dividends among the general public. Nor, they add, did Longueira's attempt to wrest the initiative from the government on the human rights issue. They are particularly incensed at seeing the DC rise back to the top of the party popularity league. Their response is to demand a visible shift back to opposition. 

But there are also cooler heads within UDI who say this would be a bad mistake. They point out that the CEP poll shows 57% of respondents agreeing that Chile's main national issues should be tackled via a consensus between the Concertación and the Alianza por Chile (the rightwing coalition of which UDI is a member). 

They also note that not all findings are favourable to the DC. For instance, 40% of all respondents see the Christian Democrats drifting away from the Concertación - and 63% of DC members dissatisfied with this trend. 

Presidential stakes unchanged 

Within the Concertación, those counselling circumspection also note that UDI's Lavín remains the respondents' favourite as next President, with 36% of preferences. The runner-up, Soledad Alvear of the DC, attracts less than a third of that (11%). Third in line is Michelle Bachelet, also of the DC, with 9% - which puts Lavín 16 points ahead of the combined support for both leading DC rivals. 

Moreover, the luck of the draw actually biased the CEP poll in favour of the government: 32% of respondents identified themselves as pro-Concertación, and only 18% as supporters of the Alianza por Chile, which is nowhere near the proportions that emerged from the last elections.

When the heads of government of Mercosur meet in Asunción on the sidelines of President Nicolás Duarte's inauguration on 15 August, the Big Two - Brazil and Argentina - will face the barely disguised irritation of their hosts over their failure to do anything to alleviate the 'asymmetries' within the trading bloc. They had promised to do so at their last summit, held in Asunción last June. 

Foreign minister José Antonio Moreno Rufinelli has flown down to Montevideo to enlist the support of the Uruguayan government to make a joint presentation to their bigger partners. They both want to make sure the 15 August meeting is not overshadowed by Lula da Silva, as the last one was.

A year on, President Alvaro Uribe's policy of using paid informants to undermine the power of Colombia's armed groups has significant results to show. Interestingly, it seems to have been most effective against common criminals. 

When President Uribe launched his Red de Cooperación Ciudadana ('Network of Citizen Cooperation') in August last year, he spoke of blanketing the country with 'a million' informants who would be rewarded for any leads producing tangible results. Recruitment was more successful than anticipated: the network currently has more that 1.6m members. 

The first working day of the week has become 'reward Monday', when a big show is made of announcing the amounts paid out for fruitful leads. Over the past year, a total of Col$2.56bn (US$890,730) has been distributed among 2,808 informants - an average of US$403 each. 

Balance sheet 

The Red was meant primarily to assist in the campaign against guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers. The information it provided led to the capture of 1,822 members of armed organisations and helped the security forces 'locate and kill 307 members of outlawed armed organisations.' In these actions 1,672 firearms were seized and four camps of guerrillas and paramilitaries were destroyed. The information also led to the freeing of 97 hostages. 

On the counternarcotics front, the Red is credited with having led to the seizure of 8.6 tonnes of cocaine, 5t of marihuana and 177 kilos of heroin, and the destruction of eight drug-processing labs. 

A side benefit was the information that led to the arrest of 3,915 common criminals - twice as many as the guerrillas and paramilitaries captured. 

Intelligence from prisons 

Officials say that similar success has accompanied a far less publicised component of Uribe's 'democratic security' strategy: gathering 'preventive' intelligence in prisons on the organisation of kidnapping networks; their leaders, modus operandi, and financing. This is credited with the increased effectiveness of the police in thwarting kidnap attempts and solving cases of abduction.

It is not every day that governments hold on to the most pessimistic forecast of economic performance, yet that is what the Uribe administration is doing. It insists on predicting that GDP growth this year will be about 2%. Private economists (and some officials speaking off the record) say that it is likely to be at least 2.5%. 

This view is supported by the latest estimate of second-quarter growth by Santiago Montenegro, head of the national planning department, DNP. On 1 August he said, 'It will not be as good [as the 3.8% recorded in the first quarter] but we can say with considerable certainty that it will be 3% or somewhat more.' 

Montenegro pointed to the reduction of the unemployment rate, from 16% to 14.2%, as a clear sign that the economy is recovering and that some sectoral policies are beginning to make an impact on the jobs market. This, he said, is making the government 'optimistic but not triumphalistic.'

Hugo Chávez appears to have succeeded in gaining another enemy: Dominican President Hipólito Mejí­a, whom he has accused of turning a blind eye to a plot being hatched in his country to assassinate him. 

Chávez did not name the plotters, but made it quite clear who he was referring to. The conspiracy, he said, was being nurtured 'outside Santo Domingo in the house of the great capo.' Almost everyone instantly recognised this as an allusion to former Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez, who spends his self-imposed exile commuting between Santo Domingo, Miami and New York. 

The Venezuelan President said he had informed Mejí­a personally of the plot, but that Mejí­a had 'made light' of it. For his part, Mejí­a said that neither he nor the Dominican intelligence services had any information about the affair - and that if Chávez had anything to tell him he should use diplomatic channels.

As Lucio Gutiérrez attempts to tighten his grip on his coalition government, one of his key ministers resigns to protest Sociedad Patriótica's high-handedness. 

Just as President Gutiérrez was issuing orders barring all officials from criticising dollarisation and mandating that all official publications should bear his effigy, interior minister Mario Canessa announced his resignation. He cited personal reasons but let it be known that he objected to the President's party, Sociedad Patriótica (PSP), imposing their own choice, Fabián Villaroel, as his undersecretary. 

The post had been vacant since Virgilio Hernández, of Pachakutik, resigned three weeks ago, also protesting the PSP's overbearing manners. Canessa had wanted his replacement to come from Pachakutik.

Abimael Guzmán is not leading the Sendero Luminoso guerrillas from his prison cell, according to interior minister Fernando Rospigliosi, the hardliner recently reappointed by President Alejandro Toledo.  

Claims that the 'historic' leader of Sendero Luminoso (SL) has been masterminding the recent upsurge of guerrilla activity are 'absolute nonsense', said interior minister Fernando Rospigliosi last week. As we have reported, these claims have come from high-ranking officers of the police's antiterrorist directorate, Dircote (WR-03-27). The police reports to the interior ministry, so heads can be expected to roll.  

Indeed, they have already started rolling. On 1 August Rospigliosi dismissed the director-general of the national police, General Eduardo Pérez Rocha - who weeks ago had publicly criticised the commission charged with modernising the police force, a body created by Rospigliosi when he was first interior minister. Pérez Rocha's replacement, General Gustavo Carrión Zavala, dutifully proclaimed during his swearing-in ceremony that he would pursue the reform plans devised by Rospigliosi.  

No contact with armed remnant of SL

Rospigliosi says that the only armed group of senderistas is the one operating in the jungle valley of the Ene and Apurí­mac rivers, and that it does not take orders from Guzmán. Moreover, he says, there have been no meetings of SL leaders in the Callao naval base prison where Guzmán has been held since the days of President Alberto Fujimori. The closest thing to such a meeting took place during the interim administration of Valentí­n Paniagua, when a group of senderista prisoners (none of them leaders) were taken to Guzmán's prison to verify that he was still alive.  

The minister has also dismissed the suggestion that there was anything suspicious about the secret meetings between former justice ministry adviser Javier Ciurlizza and SL leaders in the Callao prison in late 2000 and early 2001. The fact that these meetings had taken place was only acknowledged much later, when recordings of the discussions were leaked to the press. Ciurlizza claims that he had only been seeking to prevent a senderista hunger strike in the Yanamayo prison, in Puno, which had been the scene of a major riot in the Fujimori era.  

Conflicting evidence?  

For all of Rospigliosi's disclaimers, almost at the same time he was speaking, the prison service reported that it had applied sanctions to Guzmán, his companion Elena Iparaguirre and two imprisoned leaders of the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA), for having staged protests - the former against 'calumnies' in the press, the latter for not having been allowed 'special visitors'.  

The sanctions included a 15-day suspension of correspondence rights and visits from anyone except the prisoners' lawyers - which implies that under normal circumstances they are quite able to maintain contact with the outside world.  

Reputation for toughness  

Rospigliosi has vowed to move swiftly and energetically to stamp out terrorism. An erstwhile leftwinger best known previously as a political commentator, he adopted a tough line when he became Toledo's first interior minister. After senderistas set off a car bomb that killed 10 just before the arrival of US President George Bush Jr in March last year, Rospigliosi took advantage of the public mood to push through congress security legislation which, inter alia, authorised police wiretaps and postal intercepts without court orders and penalised the staging of demonstrations that 'interfere' with the free flow of traffic with prison terms of up to six years. Unsurprisingly, this attracted much criticism from human rights organisations.  

He earned himself the enmity of regional social organisations when he sought to quash the widespread protests against the privatisation of power utilities. The police action he ordered only exacerbated the situation, and when the government caved in and shelved the divestments, Rospigliosi resigned. He later became head of the state intelligence agency, CNI, but held the post briefly, resigning at the same time as his successor at the interior ministry, over resistance to his plans to reform the national police.

Using the standard rule-of-thumb method, the haul suggests that estimates of Bolivia's coca-for-cocaine acreage might have to be doubled.  

The Bolivian authorities reported on 3 August their biggest-ever seizure of cocaine: just over 5 tonnes of the drug. The previous record haul was of 1.1t, seized in Cochabamba in 1985. Operación Luz de Luna ('Operation Moonlight') intercepted over the weekend three separate loads of cocaine as a result of information provided by Spain, which was apparently the ultimate destination of the drugs.  

The first batch, of 2.8t, was intercepted as it was being readied to be flown to Spain via Brazil. The other two, in Montero and Santa Cruz, yielded an estimated 3t of cocaine which had been blended into truckloads of potato flakes destined for a Chilean port, for transhipment to Europe.  

Bolivia's special antinarcotics unit, FELCN, has underlined the presence of Colombians among the 24 people arrested during Operación Luz de Luna as additional evidence that drug traffickers from that country have been building up the processing phases of cocaine production within Bolivia, hitherto confined mainly to the role of supplier of raw material.  

Reassessing Bolivia's coca  

A highly unreliable rule of thumb used widely by governments and antinarcotics agencies is that seizures tend to account for about 10% of total traffic. If this measure is applied to the latest Bolivian haul, it would suggest total cocaine production of about 50t. For a country that was claiming only a year ago to have eradicated virtually all illegal coca plantations, that is a lot. Indeed, if anywhere near the mark it would force a sharp upward revision of the surface devoted to coca growing in Bolivia.  

Peru is estimated by the DEA to produce enough coca for about 120t of cocaine. The UNODC reckons that it has about 47,000 hectares planted with coca. The same source reckons that coca plantations in Bolivia cover 24,000ha, just about enough to produce the rule-of-thumb amount of cocaine cited above. However, in Bolivia 12,000ha are supposed to be legal plantations for traditional coca use, so about the same amount again would have to be added to the total to close the equation. Even if this is an exaggerated projection, what does seem certain is that the 'press down-pop up' or 'balloon' effect predicted as one of the likely consequences of Plan Colombia, is already at work.

The knee-jerk reaction to President Vicente Fox's cabinet changes was 'too little, too late'. That was missing the point: Fox is working with his own agenda, not that of the opposition. 

On 29 July Fox announced two cabinet changes. He moved Rodolfo Elizondo, hitherto his spokesman, to the tourism ministry, replacing Leticia Navarro, who resigned saying she wanted to return to private activity. He then appointed Alfonso Durazo, hitherto his private secretary, to Elizondo's position - with a twist: he also expanded Durazo's role, so that he is not only his private secretary and spokesman, but also head of the presidency's social communications area and coordinator of the information offices of all government agencies. In other words, Durazo has become the government's information czar. 

Reactions with a subtext 

The influential columnist Manuel Jáuregui sentenced, 'The cabinet changes, if that is what they can be called, come late and, moreover, are insufficient.' The opposition Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which had been clamouring for a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle as a public recognition by the government of the adverse verdict it had received from voters in the midterm legislative elections (WR-03-26), downplayed the importance of the changes in similar terms. Party spokesman Carlos Jiménez said, 'The President really took a long time to react to the message sent by the voters in the last election. We think the decision should have been taken immediately, and should have gone much deeper.' 

The President's own Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) was visibly cool towards the reshuffle. PAN chairman Luis Felipe Bravo Mena confined himself to saying, 'I think that if the President has considered these changes opportune, they will be positive, and we hope they will be for the good of service to the country and the efficiency and efficacy of the government.' Translated, this means that he suspects the changes will not do any such thing, at least as the PAN understands them. 

The reason for this was hinted at by newly elected PAN congressman Federico Doring. 'Durazo cannot be considered a panista,' he said. Indeed, for 27 long years Durazo was a member of the PRI - whereas Elizondo, shunted away from the centre of power, has been a loyal panista for the last two decades. In the same vein as Doring, Javier Livas - a member of the Amigos de Fox, the organisation that raised funds for the President's campaign - suggested that the concentration of so much power in Durazo's hands will be negative. 'The problems,' he said, 'far from being solved, will stagnate, because absolute power corrupts absolutely.' 

What appears to be happening is that Fox is preparing the ground for his wife, Marta Sahagún, to mount her bid for the presidency in 2006, a prospect which does not particularly please the PAN. In this light, the changes make sense: with Elizondo's removal, panista influence over the President diminishes; with Durazo in control of the government's information output, a formidable propaganda machine is placed at Marta Sahagún's disposal.

The political parties have reacted adversely to the new Zapatista strategy, warning of the threat to the rule of law. One man disagrees: Chiapas governor Pablo Salazar. 

The coordinators of the senate blocs of all three leading political parties - PAN, PRI and PRD - have issued a warning that the new strategy announced by the Zapatista leader, 'Subcomandante Marcos' (WR-03-29), could lead to armed conflict. Only the PRD's Jesús Ortega qualified this by noting that the events in Chiapas were 'an attention call' to congress for dragging its feet on reforming the indigenous rights legislation. 

In the lower chamber, congressmen called for the revival of the legislature's peace commission, Cocopa - while admitting that it did not make much sense when a new congress will be installed within a month. 

Meanwhile, Marcos added to the list of things the Zapatistas intended to do. Apart from their traditional Internet presence, they will launch shortwave broadcasts through their own station, Radio Insurgente (on 5.8 megahertz; if there is government jamming, 'move your dial as you would your hips in a cumbia, and find us'). Worth noting: while the Internet is a 'cool' medium for the affluent, radio is a hot medium that directly addresses the population at large. 

Dissident governor 

The Zapatistas will also set up five juntas de buen gobierno to coordinate the 30 'autonomous' Zapatista municipalities in Chiapas and act as their official links with the outside world. It was this last initiative which allowed Chiapas governor Pablo Salazar to break ranks with the politicians who were ringing alarm bells. He said, 'No community that seeks ways to improve their lives is breaking the law.' This was in flat contradiction with the attitude of the Chiapas bar association, which had said the state and federal authorities should deal with Marcos's announcements as an ultimatum, 'intransigent, inopportune and very hostile [and aimed at] breaking the rule of law.' 

Even the bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Felipe Arizmendi, had bowed to the mood of the political milieu, noting that while the changes announced by the Zapatistas were 'licit', they should be carried out 'within the framework of legality'. 

Salazar, a former PRI senator who served on Cocopa, broke with his party to run for the governorship in 2000 as the candidate of a broad civic front. In his campaign he promised to review state legislation passed by his predecessor, Roberto Albores Guillén, with the purpose of neutralising the San Andrés agreements - the selfsame ones the Zapatistas now intend to implement in their 'autonomous' municipalities.

The last time Chiapas saw open armed conflict was when the Zapatistas seized several towns on 1 January 1994. The fighting lasted 12 days and claimed 145 lives before a ceasefire was agreed. 

The last time 'Subcomandante Marcos' was seen in public was in March 2001, when he led a highly publicised 3,000-kilometre march which came to be known as the Zapatour, from Chiapas to Mexico city.

Rí­os Montt has been registered as a candidate, but new legal challenges have arisen, and the issue has started having concrete political effects, bringing together the opposition. 

On 30 July an enlarged constitutional court ruled in favour of a new suit brought by the lawyers of retired General Efraí­n Rí­os Montt, nullifying the supreme court's provisional injunction against him, ordering the electoral authority to register Rí­os Montt as presidential candidate of the ruling Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG), and barring the supreme court from granting any further injunctions or hearing any further appeals in this line of litigation. 

New legal avenues sought 

Rí­os Montt was duly handed his registration papers, but this was not the end of the story. Two political groups, the Gran Alianza Nacional (Gana - the coalition fielding poll frontrunner Oscar Berger) and the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE - a left-of-centre coalition fielding Alvaro Colom; frequent target of the 'clandestine security groups'), have resorted to another avenue, filing a suit with the registry office for the annulment of Rí­os Montt's registration, on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. This new line of litigation could follow the same path as the previous one, up to the supreme court and the constitutional court. 

Perhaps the least expected legal challenge was the suit filed by 15 indigenous organisations against Rí­os Montt, President Alfonso Portillo and interior minister Adolfo Reyes, for allegedly breaching the recently approved law against discrimination and racism. The claim, pioneered by Nobel prizewinner Rigoberta Menchú, is that Rí­os Montt was responsible for 'obliging' or 'pressuring' Indians into joining the mob that rioted the previous week in Guatemala city in a show of force designed to intimidate the judiciary (WR-03-29). 

Some of the Indians had been paid the equivalent of US$12 to join the demonstrations; according to Menchú they were misled, as they were given no indication that there would be violence. Other Indian participants were drawn from among former members of the PACs, the 'civilian self-defence patrols' pressganged during the internal war to assist in the army's counter-insurgency efforts. According to Menchú, testimonies of coercion have been collected to back up the accusations. Portillo and Reyes are cited as accessories, for not having prevented the riots organised by the ruling party. It is not at all clear that the suit will prosper. 

Political ramifications 

The first sign that the Rí­os Montt issue was influencing change on the political front was when all opposition parties in the single-chamber congress announced, on 30 July, that they were coalescing into the Instancia Parlamentaria de Oposición, with the overriding aim of monitoring the electoral process, to ensure that Rí­os Montt, with the assistance of his son Enrique, a serving general who is chief of the defence staff, does not attempt to repeat the methods seen in the Guatemala city riots. 

They also intended to make a strong gesture by tabling on 1 August, when congress reconvened, a motion condemning the riots. It could not be more than a gesture, since even as a bloc they were outvoted by the FRG, which holds 59 of the 113 seats in the legislature. In the event, though, they achieved more: clearly fearing that they would incur public opprobrium if they voted down the motion, the FRG legislators chose instead to walk out, depriving the body of the necessary quorum. 

Two days later an even broader coalition, the Frente Cí­vico por la Democracia, was formed by the leaders of the opposition parties, unions, business associations, human rights organisations, academic and student bodies, artistes, NGOs - even groups of Guatemala expatriates. 

Their first act was to prepare yet another legal challenge, this time aimed at the four magistrates of the constitutional court who ruled in favour of Rí­os Montt. They are filing a suit with the ethics tribunal of the lawyers' association, with a view to getting them disbarred. If things move fast enough, this could influence the outcome of other suits in the pipeline.

President Francisco Flores has enlisted the army in a drive to wipe out the gangs known as maras. There are fears that this may prove ineffectual, even backfire. 

The maras, estimated to have a joint membership of about 9,000, have been blamed for about 100 killings, many deliberately gruesome, a month - indeed, in the half-week in which Operación Mano Dura was set in motion, seven gang killings were reported in the San Salvador area. 

Joint police-military patrols, targeting primarily the two largest gangs, Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18, claimed almost instant successes: in less than a week they made 541 arrests. 

This apparent success could prove unfounded: most of those detained may have to be released, as the police have no charges to file against them. Already about 200 have been set free. President Flores had openly admitted that the military-police drive would not suffice to eradicate the maras: the first phase of the campaign, he said, was intended to 'rescue' the neighbourhoods the gangs had made their own. 

Real success, he added, required the passage of new legislation - which he only submitted to congress after giving the army and police the order to go in. The bill sharply increases the penalties for a number of offences, but most notably (emulating the law passed earlier by Honduras) makes mere membership of a mara a punishable offence. 

This has been strongly criticised by human rights organisations and a number of jurists. Jaime Martí­nez, of the Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho (Fespad, a private foundation that conducts research into the application of the law), says that it is fundamentally wrong to penalise a condition rather than an action. 'To make it a crime to be a marero, is tantamount to believing that being a vagrant or a homosexual is criminal.' 

Even the Catholic archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, has pointedly reminded congressmen that 'if it is necessary to create special legislation, the proper steps must be taken, but keeping always within the framework of legality and the constitution.'

Leadership candidates are surfacing in both the ruling PNP and the opposition JLP, though neither PJ Patterson nor Edward Seaga are yet putting a date on their departure. 

The poor performance of the ruling People's National Party (PNP) in last month's local elections has brought to the fore, earlier than expected, the question of who will replace prime minister PJ Patterson. Three prominent party figures are seen to be already in the running: former cabinet minister Karl Blythe (the only one who has publicly acknowledged that he is a contender), national security minister Peter Phillips and local government minister Portia Simpson Miller. All three are vice-presidents of the PNP. 

The Sunday Gleaner claims that there is a move afoot to enhance Phillips' chances and reduce those of Blythe. It involves securing the election, at the PNP conference in September, of development minister Paul Robertson, an ally of Phillips, as one of the party's four vice-presidents. Of the current four, only one, agriculture minister Roger Clarke, is deemed not to aspire to the top post. 

Prime minister Patterson said last weekend, 'It would be unrealistic to expect that potential candidates will not begin to position themselves for the starting gate. But until that time when a vacancy is imminent, any campaigning or positioning that could prove to divide the party or distract from our current mission of continuing the social and economic transformation of Jamaica, must and will be discouraged.' It is widely believed that Patterson will step down sometime next year. 

Two declared contenders in JLP 

In the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) it has been assumed for some time that former deputy leader Pearnel Charles would be a leading contender to replace Edward Seaga when he steps down. Now an unexpected rival has appeared in the form of current deputy leader Derrick Smith, hitherto not considered to harbour leadership aspirations. 

These two have openly declared that they are in the running. Political commentators also cite two other deputy leaders, Audley Shaw and Ed Bartlett, as well as former party chairman Bruce Golding, as possible contenders. Both Charles and Golding - who are brothers-in-law - are rumoured to be seeking election as deputy leaders at the JLP's conference in November (though Golding has denied this outright and Charles says he hasn't yet made up his mind). 

Some analysts suggest that deputy leader Audley Shaw, who as spokesman on financial affairs has earned a reputation as the scourge of the ruling PNP, might also emerge as a leadership contender. 

Apart from Seaga's position as leader, another one is expected to become vacant soon: that of party chairman, currently held by Ryan Peralto, who has been suffering from ill health. Golding has dismissed suggestions that he might seek to get his old job back, which leaves the acting deputy chairman, Percy Broderick, as the favourite to succeed Peralto. 

It is expected that Seaga will step down before the next general election, due in 2007: Patterson has stated that he will not be in the running, and few think Seaga, now 73, would chance contending against a younger PNP leader.