Washington Watch - 03 June 2010
Bolivia: The US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, paid his first official visit to La Paz on 1 June where he met Bolivia's foreign secretary David Choquehuanca. The meeting was aimed at repairing bilateral relations which have been suspended since September 2008 after both ambassadors were ejected following spying allegations involving the-then US envoy to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg. Choquehuanca said after the meeting that a new bilateral framework agreement was “99% there". It is worth noting however that he made similar positive noises following his visit to Washington in late October 2009, which failed to yield any further results.
Caribbean: The US announced last week it had set aside US$37m for the financial year 2010 to support the Caribbean Regional Security Cooperation Initiative (CBSI), a new initiative first floated by President Barack Obama in April 2009 at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad & Tobago. The regional initiative is in response to concerns expressed by the Caribbean Community over the negative spillover effect of regional initiatives such as the Mérida Plan, the multi-year programme to combat organized crime in Mexico and Central America, and the goes beyond security and law enforcement to include strengthening and reform of the institutions of the judiciary, prosecution and prisons as well as social justice. The Obama administration's FY 2011 request for CBSI is US$79m.
Cuba: On 2 June PJ Crowley, a US state department spokesman,
said that the US government “continues to hope that prisoners of conscience will
be released rather than just relocated, and as soon as possible". Crowley was
asked for the US reaction to Cuba's transfers earlier this week of political
prisoners to prisons closer to their families, following negotiations with the
Cuban government and the Roman Catholic church in Havana. On 2 June the Democrat
chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the
Western Hemisphere, Eliot Rangel, was dismissive of the move, saying it was
“insignificant_.it's like moving chairs on the Titanic", he quipped. A
Republican Florida congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, called the prisoner
transfer “a farce" and said that the Cuban government “deserved neither praise
nor credit".
Peru: On 1 June US President Barack
Obama met his Peruvian peer, Alan García during García's official four-day visit
to the US. The agenda for the meeting was inter-regional cooperation and the
implementation of a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), signed in 2007. The
presidents also reached an agreement that will aid the implementation of the
FTA. The agreement is based on greater technology-related investment. The
tougher topics of immigration and narco-trafficking were only briefly mentioned
during the press conference. These areas are likely to form a major part of US
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's visit to Lima for the Organization of
American States (OAS) meeting, on 6-8
June.
Mexico: On 27 May the Mexican state
newsagency, Notimex, reported that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) was close
to finalising its application to the US Supreme Court to overturn the
controversial Arizona immigration law, SB1070. The DOJ, which refused to comment
on the Notimex story, is reportedly going to base its case on the argument that
the Arizona law is unconstitutional because it infringes upon the prerogatives
of the federal government. The law, which does not come into force until the end
of July, requires the police, “when practicable" and if they have reasonable
suspicion, to check the immigration status of people they stop, detain or arrest
for another reason. According to Notimex, anonymous DOJ officials made the point
that under the US constitution only the federal government is responsible for
border security. Two US newspapers, The Arizona Republic and The Los Angeles
Times, have reported that the DOJ may also argue that the law is
unconstitutional because it constitutes 'racial profiling', and would thus
infringe the rights of Latinos living legally in Arizona. Matthew Miller, a DOJ
spokesman, yesterday said that he could not confirm whether any DOJ decision was
imminent.