Washington Watch

Items

• 12 January 2005

  12 January 2005 Hits: 104

  ECUADOR: US expresses concern over political situation

  EL SALVADOR: Temporary Protected Status extended for immigrants

  BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Zoellick becomes deputy Secretary of State

  MEDIA: Chávez sets up rival to CNN

  VENEZUELA: US senators express hope for future relations

  ECUADOR
  The US embassy in Ecuador expressed concern earlier this week at the political situation and judicial instability in Ecuador. Glen Warren, the embassy press officer, said that Ambassador Kristie Kenney had spoken with President Lucio Gutiérrez about her concerns over the new supreme court, which was purged by the government on 8 December 2004. Of the supreme court's 31 current magistrates 27 positions were allocated to the government's allies who helped force the vote through congress. Gutiérrez said he was 'depoliticising' the supreme court. “We have expressed our hope that government and civil society come together to resolve this situation so that democratic institutions, like the judiciary, are strengthened," Warren said.

  EL SALVADOR
  Immigration status President Tony Saca said that the US had promised to extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) extended to thousands of Salvadorean illegal immigrants for a further 18 months, until 9 September 2006. The TPS, which allows 290,000 undocumented Salvadorean migrants to work in the country, was originally offered as part of an aid package to El Salvador following the devastating earthquakes that hit the country in early 2001. Saca has been pushing hard for the TPS to become permanent. The Salvadorean government reckons that there are a total of around 2.3m Salvadoreans working in the US. In October 2004, Washington extended the TPS to Honduran and Nicaraguan immigrants until 5 July 2006. Some 82,000 Hondurans and 4,500 Nicaraguans who arrived in the US following the 1998 devastation of Hurricane Mitch in Central America benefited from the extension. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recommended against TPS for Haitian immigrants in the US.

  BUSH ADMINISTRATION
  On 7 January, President George W Bush appointed Robert Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, as the new deputy Secretary of State, reporting to Condoleezza Rice. Zoellick had been tipped to become the president of the World Bank when Jim Wolfensohn retires in June. Zoellick, though not a Spanish speaker, is familiar with Latin America and political commentators in Washington say that his appointment means that Latin America is moving up the administration's foreign policy agenda. Another sign of this is the appointment of Carlos Gutiérrez, a former chief executive of Kellogg's, as Secretary of Commerce. Gutiérrez was born in Cuba and educated, partly, in Mexico. Zoellick also knows the State Department: he served as its undersecretary for economic affairs when George H W Bush was president. The buzz in Washington is that Roger Noriega, the State Department's top Latin American affairs policymaker, will remain in place for at least another six months.

  MEDIA
  President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela announced on 9 January that he will set up TV Sur, a 24 hour Spanish news channel to compete directly with CNN. TV Sur will use only Latin American content, Chávez said. He said that the channel should start broadcasting in March. Chávez has long been hostile to CNN which he accuses of bias.

  VENEZUELA
  Three senior US senators, Lincoln Chafee (Republican, Rhode Island), Bill Nelson (Democrat, Florida) and Christopher Dodd (Democrat, Connecticut) visited Caracas for three days, leaving on 10 January. They met politicians, including President Hugo Chávez , and forecast that relations between the US and Venezuela will improve. Nelson said that the senators had discussed the controversial capture of Rodrigo Granda, the so-called foreign minister for the Colombian guerrilla group, Farc. The Venezuelans suspects that he was kidnapped from Caracas before being arrested in Colombia. Nelson said he hoped that the US Peace Corps would be allowed to send teams to help reduce poverty in Venezuela as relations between the two countries improved.

• 19 January 2005

  19 January 2005 Hits: 91

  VENEZUELA: US walks a narrow course

  US IN LATIN AMERICA: More involvement wanted in Bush II

  FREE TRADE: Agreements almost reached

  BRAZIL: Seeks to free itself of dependency on US trade

  CUBA: Rice reaffirms US interest in peaceful transition to democracy

  VENEZUELA
  The US Secretary of State elect, Condoleezza Rice, illustrated the dilemma of US relations with Venezuela during her confirmation hearings on 18 January in front of the senate foreign relations committee. Her words about Venezuela were harsh, but they did not promise any action. The senate foreign relations committee itself is alarmed by the threat that Venezuela may switch its oil exports away from the US.

  Rice said that the way the government of President Hugo Chávez acted was "unacceptable". She accused the Chávez government of interfering in the affairs of other countries in the region. She added that she was unhappy at Chávez 's continuing friendship with President Fidel Castro of Cuba. All in all, she concluded, "I think that currently we should regard the Venezuelan government as a negative force in the region. Negative because of the effects it has on its neighbours; negative because of its closeness to the only non-democratic country in the region [Cuba] and negative because of what it is doing in its own country, suppressing the opposition." She added that the issue of US-Venezuelan relations was "very, very delicate."

  On the other hand, Rice specifically recognised that Chávez was democratically elected "even though he governs in way that is hardly democratic, for the steps he has taken against the media and the opposition. The [situation] is very worrying." The senators themselves confessed to a range of concerns about Venezuela, which each month vies with Saudi Arabia as the US third-biggest oil supplier. Venezuela provides about 15% of the oil the US imports every day. Senator Mel Martí­nez, a Republican from Florida, said that he was worried about an arms race developing in the region following President Chávez 's trip to Russia during which he spent, according to the senator, US$5bn on weapons. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, who has travelled to Venezuela several times in the past 18 months, most recently between 8 and 10 January 2005, advised the administration to diversify away from Venezuelan oil.

  Richard Lugar, the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, echoed Nelson saying that the US should draw up contingency plans. On 14 January, Lugar was reported in the 'Financial Times' to have commissioned a report from the Government Accountability Office to look at the impact on the US of the loss of Venezuelan oil supplies. One problem Venezuela faces in diversifying its oil markets is geographic. During his Christmas visit to China President Chávez spoke of increasing exports there, but getting oil across the Pacific poses a problem. One idea is to use the Colombian pipeline system. Another is to take the oil to Panama and then use the transisthmian pipeline. An unnamed US official was quoted by the FT on 14 January as saying: "The US will not look favourably on Panama aiding Venezuela to sell its oil to a competitor of the US." Another problem Venezuela faces in diversifying its oil markets is that its oil is heavy, with a high sulphur content. Chinese oil refineries are used to dealing with lighter oil.

  Two senators on the foreign relations committee took a pro-Chávez line: Christopher Dodd, who travelled to Venezuela with Nelson at the beginning of 2005 reported that "even President Chávez wanted to have better relations with the US." Dodd noted that in some countries criticising the US played well domestically. Dodd was supported by a Republican, Lincoln Chafee, who accompanied Nelson and Dodd on their recent trip. Chafee said that other countries did other unconstructive things, but the US should "recognise that the Venezuelans have made their decision and we should respect this."

  US IN LATIN AMERICA
  Two US senators sitting on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are making a concerted effort to get Latin America back on to Washington's foreign-policy agenda. "The United States has been all too absent in Latin America, and I think we can energize that," Mel Martinez, a Republican senator for Florida said. "We only have a few countries in Latin America where we have Peace Corps volunteers. That's one of the best programs where Americans go as ambassadors. It all has to start with a commitment," Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, said. He said he would bring the issue up this week during Senate confirmation hearings for Condoleezza Rice. Nelson said that the way to get Latin America recognised by the Bush administration as an important region was to talk about security. "Where there is poverty, where there is a lack of enforcement of the law, where there is corruption, where there is not the enhancement of the rule of law, terrorism will incubate," he said. Nelson visited the tri-border area between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina last week. The first Bush administration registered concern that the area was being used to raise funds for terrorist groups.

  FREE TRADE
  The US and Panama will hold an eighth round of trade negotiations between 23 and 31 January in Washington after the seventh 'final' round proved to be inconclusive. No agreement was reached in the seventh round on market access for sensitive agricultural products, such as poultry, pork, beef, dairy, corn and rice. Panama is also sensitive about potatoes and onions while the US is concerned about protecting its sugar industry. Unsurprisingly, government procurement issues relating to the Panama Canal Authority are highly sensitive. Separately, the free trade agreement between the US and Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will head into a penultimate round in Cartagena, Colombia on 7 February. Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 18 January, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that she wanted to see the free trade agreements with Central America and the Dominican Republic (Cafta) and with the Andean countries sent to congress and approved as soon as possible.

  BRAZIL
  President Lula da Silva said to journalists on 18 January that Brazil was not 'at odds' with the US over its search for new trade partners. According to Lula, that 'would be like tearing a US$100 note'. The president, however, defended the government's policy of establishing alternative trade partnerships with developing nations 'to show Brazil is not as dependent as [the US] had imagined'. Meanwhile, the future US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rica, said Brazil was a 'great partner of the US'. Rice was answering questions posed by the US senate foreign relations committee regarding the Bush administration's plans for Latin America during the next four-year term. According to Rice, the US will continue to work with Brazil as co-president in the FTAA negotiations. Rice said Brazil was 'key' for the future of the region.

  CUBA
  In her testimony to the US senate foreign relations committee, Condoleezza Rice said that the US government was committed to a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba and would be paying close attention to this issue. "The only empty seat at the OAS is Cuba's," said Rice, referring to Cuba's ejection from that body in 1962. The secretary of state elect said that the Castro regime fought to prevent the Cuban people from gaining access to information and that consequently the second Bush administration would be committed to supporting and amplifying TV and radio broadcasts directed towards Cuba, such as those provided by 'Comando Solo', the aircraft service that flies near the island, on the edge of American airspace, transmitting anti-Castro information. "The day when the people of Cuba are finally free will be one of the greatest days for the Western hemisphere," Rice said.

• 26 January 2005

  26 January 2005 Hits: 87

  VENEZUELA: Rice voices concerns

  CHILE: Banco de Chile under investigation

  REPATRIATION: 38,000 minors deported

  SENATORS: Democrats attack Rice

  SECRET SERVICE: Pentagon denies reports of new agency

  RICE AND VENEZUELA
  Speaking at her confirmation hearings last week, the incoming US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, did not announce any sea change in US policy towards Venezuela. "We are very concerned," she said, "about a democratically-elected leader who governs in an illiberal way, and some of the steps that have been taken against the media, against opposition, I think are really very deeply troubling." She did not touch on Venezuela's dispute with Colombia over the recent abduction of the Farc guerrilla leader, Rodrigo Granda, in Caracas. Speaking at a daily press briefing on 24 January, the deputy spokesman for the US State Department, Adam Ereli, was circumspect on the Granda issue. Asked whether the US would favour Colombia in the dispute, Ereli said: "On Rodrigo Granda, there are media reports that the recently-detained senior official of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was residing and operating freely in Venezuela prior to his arrest in Colombia. As you know, the Farc has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States. We have also seen press reports that the Government of Colombia has given the Venezuelan Government specific information about the presence in Venezuela of ten major Colombian terrorists and we'd expect the Venezuelan Government to carefully examine this information and to take all required and effective law enforcement actions against the terrorists."

  CHILE
  Banco de Chile, the second-most important bank in Chile, is under investigation in the US because of the assets it held on behalf of former General Augusto Pinochet. Two branches of the bank are under scrutiny, the one in New York by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the one in Miami by the federal reserve of Atlanta. The accounts, which Pinochet opened in the 1980s, are also the subject of an investigation by judge Sergio Muñoz, the magistrate prosecuting the former dictator for money-laundering and tax evasion through secret multimillion dollar bank accounts held at the Riggs bank in Washington DC. A week ago Banco de Chile, a member of the Luksic group, closed the accounts of Pinochet and his family as well as that of the Pinochet Foundation, the organisation dedicated to promoting the achievements of the military regime.

  REPATRIATION
  The migration authorities of the US deported 38,000 undocumented minors in the first eleven months of 2004. Magdelana Carral, head of the Instituto Nacional de Migración said that over 10,000 of the children “had been sent to public and private institutions which form a network of rest stops all along the border with the US". Carral added that the number of minors caught trying to cross into the US illegally was increasing every year and that consequently working with children was an essential part of the migration authorities' work.

  SENATORS
  Democrat senators, led by Edward Kennedy, criticised the Secretary of State-elect, Condoleezza Rice, in a debate on 25 January. They said that she was the wrong choice and was the architect of the failed policy in Iraq. The senate foreign relations committee approved her nomination on 21 January, despite bi-partisan dissent over her disparaging comments on President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, which were later reciprocated. The full senate is expected to approve her nomination.

  SECRET SERVICE
  The Defense Department denied on 23 January a report in the Washington Post that the government was preparing to set up a new secret service agency to supersede the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The new secret service would provide foreign intelligence to the Pentagon, which is known to be unhappy with the service provided by the CIA. The Defense Department said that there was no secret service answerable only to the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The Pentagon added that there was no intention of setting up such an agency. The Washington Post claimed that the service had been operating for two years, and was active in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a memo, seen by The Post, from the General Richard Myers, head of the joint chiefs of staff, to Rumsfeld, the Pentagon was focusing the new service on countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, the Philippines and Georgia.

• 2 February 2005

  02 February 2005 Hits: 85

  MEXICO: US seeks to mend relations

  OAS: Derbez tries to tap into anti-Americanism

  CUBA: US concern at EU lifting sanctions

  VENEZUELA: Rodríguez responds to US criticism

  ECUADOR: Trade minister seeks deal on flowers and tuna

  MEXICO
  President George Bush called President Vicente Fox on 1 February to try to end a row caused by comments made by the US ambassador to Mexico on Mexico's floundering efforts to deal with organised crime. These comments were compounded by an alarmist warning issued by the State Department about the dangers of travelling to the north of Mexico. In the half hour call, President Bush confirmed his invitation to Fox to come to meet him in Washington in early March. The Canadian prime minister, Paul Martin, will also be part of that encounter. According to President Fox, he made another appeal to Bush to implement a deal to improve the rights of immigrants in the US and to encourage them to migrate there legally. Fox said that Bush had promised to send his proposal to congress. However, as Bush also said that he will discuss the proposal during Fox's visit, it seems that it is still some way from going to congress. The US effort to soothe bruised feelings in Mexico was reinforced by a conciliatory briefing from the State Department. The State Department was asked to comment on a statement from Santiago Creel, the interior minister and Fox's candidate to succeed him as president.

  On 31 January Creel said that certification [by the US] should not be reinstated because Mexico is fighting the drug trade and arresting drug barons; while the US has not even identified its own drug barons. Creel added that the US was not bothered about the money generated by the drug trade in the US. The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, replied: " I don't really have any comment. I hadn't seen his particular comments, but this is not a matter of argument between the US and Mexico. It's a matter of cooperation between the US and Mexico. We've done a lot together to fight drugs. We know we've got supply problems, demand problems, and we both need to address both, all these aspects. And our emphasis with Mexico on the drug problems is to fight them together, to cooperate in law enforcement, to cooperate in policy issues, and that's the way we'll keep handling these things."

  OAS
  The Mexican foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez, tried to tap another seam of anti-Americanism by promising to end the perception that the Organization of American States was manipulated by the US. Derbez is running for the job of OAS Secretary General. The US candidate for the job is the former president of El Salvador, Francisco Flores. The other candidate is the former Chilean foreign (now interior) minister, José Miguel Insulza. Derbez said that he did not believe that the US manipulated the OAS but he admitted that this was a widespread perception. The US has not formally opposed either Derbez or Insulza. Derbez claims that Flores is not the consensus candidate from Central America that he claims to be: Derbez said that Panama, Honduras and Belize all oppose Flores.

  CUBA
  The US State Department expressed concern on 1 February at the decision by the European Union to lift diplomatic sanctions on Cuba. The sanctions were imposed in June 2003 after 75 political dissidents were rounded up and imprisoned without trial. "We remain concerned that suspending the restrictive measures without achieving the goals for which they were put in place will embolden regime hardliners and dishearten the peaceful opposition," the spokesman for the State Department, Richard Boucher, said. He also urged the EU to continue to push the government of President Fidel Castro on human rights issues. "Our experience in terms of watching what's happened with Cuba and the Castro regime is that a productive dialogue with the Castro regime is simply not possible," Boucher said. "Past efforts by the Europeans and others have yielded neither political nor economic reforms, and therefore we believe that the kind of pressure that has existed in the past is the only approach, the best approach, to trying to secure change in Cuba. But we will continue to work with the Europeans on how best to promote human rights in Cuba and how best to support the democratic opposition," he added. The EU will review its decision to restore high-level visits by European officials to Cuba and increase its participation in Cuban cultural events in July.

  VENEZUELA
  Venezuela's foreign minister, Alí­ Rodrí­guez, warned that the US's “serious concerns" about the government of President Chávez could be the prelude to more Washington-backed “outrages" in the Latin American country. Rodrí­guez made his comments on 1 February in response to a briefing by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, who expressed concern over media and political freedoms under the Chávez government. The foreign minister argued that “everybody knows the consequence of such concerns_The US's fears are about the Venezuelan people who in the course of nine consecutive elections have thrown out the opposition and given their firm and faithful support to President Chávez ." Today, 2 February, marks Chávez 's sixth anniversary in power.

  ECUADOR
  Ivonne Baki, the minister for foreign trade travelled to the US on 1 February in order to seek better conditions for entry into the US market for Ecuador's burgeoning flower and tuna exports. Baki's trip coincides with the final stages of the negotiations for a free-trade agreement between the US and the three Andean countries of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. Around 66% of the flowers Ecuador exports go to the US.

• 09 February 2005

  09 February 2005 Hits: 86

  MERCOSUR: US rejects "4+1" agreement with Mercosur

  US BUDGET: Changes in Latin American funding package

  NICARAGUA: US claims army sold SAM-7 missiles

  OAS: US contribution increases by 20%

  IMMIGRATION: Immigrants fight Mexican ID card ban

  MERCOSUR
  The US has rejected a "4+1" trade agreement with Mercosur in favour of pursuing the hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the deputy US Trade Representative Peter Allgeier said on 8 February. Allgeier said that the 4+1 proposal made by Brazil which would consist of direct negotiations between the US and the Mercosur bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) "is something which does not interest the US". Allgeier said that the US was less interested in industry than it was "intellectual property, transparency and legal protection for investments (which) have become essential to any negotiation". Allgeier is expected to relaunch FTAA talks with Brazil's Adhemar Bahadian, his co-president of the FTAA, at the end of the month. The friction between Brazil and the US over the FTAA has been well documented. The Brazilian government advocates an FTAA-lite; the US has pursued separate deals with several South American countries, including Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, and with Central America.

  US BUDGET
  The US budget for the 2006 fiscal year, presented to congress by President George W Bush on 7 February, cuts anti-drug cash for Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, a move badly received in these countries, but boosts US support for opposition political parties in Venezuela. On the drug front, the US is clearly changing tack, moving away from eradication programmes, which have been largely discredited, towards air tracking and interception. Overall, the budget allowance for the Andean region (the Andean counter-drugs initiative) is up by about US$9.4m on 2005 at US$734.5m. By far and away the main beneficiary is Colombia, which will receive 63% of this figure. Elsewhere, the budget steps up support for the National Endowment for Democracy, which has been active in supporting opposition political parties in Venezuela, from US$59m to US$80m.

  NICARAGUA
  An article published in The Washington Times on 27 January which cited unnamed US officials who claimed that rogue elements in the Nicaraguan army were selling SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles on the black market has caused resentment in the Nicaraguan army and indirectly threatened the position of President Enrique Bolaños. Bolaños told the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald on 5 February that he would not be at all surprised if the army were selling SAM-7s on the sly. His comments provoked an icy response from the outgoing head of the armed forces, Javier Carrión, who pointedly sought (and received) support from the opposition-dominated national assembly. The opposition is currently chipping away at the powers of the executive and could revive an initiative it toyed with last year to impeach the president. The Washington Times article cited Roger Pardo-Maurer, the deputy-assistant defense secretary for the Western Hemisphere: "If this is what it appears to be, it calls into question not only the professionalism and integrity of the Nicaraguan armed forces, but it really calls into question their sanity. Playing with shoulder-fired missiles is one of the most dangerous things out there and is at the top of concerns by the Department of Defense," he said.

  OAS
  The US government's draft budget for the fiscal year 2006, which starts in October, calls for a 20% increase in the US contribution to the budget for the Organization of American States. The US will provide US$65m of the OAS's US$80m budget. This largesse may swing some support behind the US's candidate for the job of secretary general, Francisco Flores, the former president of El Salvador. Initially, however, the announcement produced the defection of Honduras from the Flores camp to support Luis Ernesto Derbez, the Mexican foreign minister. Derbez now has the support of Canada, Belize, Bolivia, Honduras, Mexico and St Vincent & The Grenadines. The frontrunner for the secretary generalship is the former Chilean foreign (now interior) minister, José Miguel Insulza.

  IMMIGRATION
  For the first time immigrants' rights organisations banded together on 8 February in Los Angeles to uphold the validity of the Mexican identity card. Rightwing groups in the US want to stop banks and other organisations recognising Mexican identity cards as a valid identification for opening bank accounts and other activities. The move to roll back banks and local governments' acceptance of Mexican ID cards is being led by a Republican, Michael Antonovich. He is the district supervisor for the Fifth District in Los Angeles who refuses to accept Mexican ID cards. At a board of supervisors meeting on 8 February he produced what he said was a false Mexican ID card with his name on it. He argued that both the FBI and the US department of justice had concluded that the ID card was too easy to forge. The LA board of supervisors, however, voted to continue to accept the ID cards. The Mexican consul in LA. who debated the issue face to face with Antonovich on 8 February, said that he was pleased by the decision. Mexican ID cards have been accepted by one of the big banks in California, Wells Fargo, since November 2001.

• 16 February 2005

  16 February 2005 Hits: 82

  US-VENEZUELA: Different takes on US-Venezuelan relations.

  ANDEAN TRADE: Trade talks to restart.

  AGRICULTURE: Aid to Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

  IRAQ: El Salvador's government sends troops to Iraq.

  URUGUAY: John Taylor praises progress of Uruguayan economy.

  US-VENEZUELA
  In an editorial in The Washington Post, published on 15 February, the vice-president of the Inter-American Dialogue, Michael Shifter, wrote about the need for a change in US-Venezuelan relations. He argued that the US had undermined its power and effectiveness by rushing to support President Uribe during the recent incident between Venezuela and Colombia. He also referred to the "sharp tone" Condoleezza Rice used during her confirmation hearings in congress when she said that Chávez was a "negative force" in the region. Shifter said that comments of this type undermine the ability of the US to deal with its concerns over the democratic credentials of the Venezuelan leader. Separately, Robert Zoellick, who will shortly become US undersecretary of State, warned about the increase of authoritarianism and populism in Latin America due to leaders like Hugo Chávez . He did not say which countries he felt were suffering from "creeping authoritarianism" but he said that the new breed of authoritarians follow similar patterns. "You win the election, but you do away with your opponents, you do away with the press, you do away with the rule of law, you pack the courts," he said. Zoellick, who was speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also admitted to being "very worried" about the current situation in Venezuela. "Chávez wants to portray his relationship with the United States as comparable to David and Goliath", he said. "The US shouldn't be afraid to say, "well, he's taking away liberties". Not at all. We should stand for that (liberties)."

  ANDEAN TRADE
  The US, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador will restart trade negotiations in March, the US assistant trade representative, Regina Vargo, said on 14 February. Although negotiations have progressed in areas such as market access and government procurement, as ever agriculture is proving to be a sensitive issue. Meanwhile, Free-Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) talks are expected to get underway in earnest soon. A significant part of the delay has been caused by opposition to the plan in the US congress, and from the industrial and agricultural sectors.

  AGRICULTURE
  On 14 February the US Agriculture Department announced that it will give US$125m in aid to 16 countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Among the recipients in Latin America are Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The new US Agriculture Secretary, Mike Johanns, said that these donations are part of the "Food for Progress" programme that seeks to support economic development projects in underdeveloped countries. Bolivia will receive 15,000 tonnes of wheat and soya oil. Through a programme run by the University of Texas, Guatemala will receive 15,000 t of soya flour; two Honduran institutions, Technoserve and Escuela Agrí­cola Panamericana Zamorano, will receive 6,800 t of soya flour and 3,000 t of rice respectively.

  IRAQ
  El Salvador's government sent a fourth contingent of troops to Iraq on 10 February. The dispatch of the troops shows once again that El Salvador is the staunchest ally of the US in Latin America, a commitment that the US acknowledged recently when it offered its support to the former president of El Salvador, Francisco Flores, in his bid to become secretary-general of the Organization of American States. El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops still stationed in Iraq. Meanwhile, Bantz J Craddock, the Head of the US Southern Command, in a meeting with President Leonel Fernández of the Dominican Republic, expressed US gratitude for the help given by the Dominican Republic during the previous administration when troops were sent to Iraq.

  URUGUAY
  The undersecretary for international affairs at the US Treasury, John Taylor, praised the progress of the Uruguayan economy, in particular mentioning the GDP surplus of 3.6% last year. Taylor referred to the reforms made in the financial sector and the measures taken to strengthen consumer confidence. He underlined his hopes of continuing to work closely with the new president, Tabaré Vázquez. Taylor said that the administration of President Bush is looking forward to assisting in the implementation of microeconomic policies to promote investment in the region by Latin American businessmen.

• 23 February 2005

  23 February 2005 Hits: 83

  VENEZUELA: State department denies Chávez's claims

  MEXICO: Largest number of US soldiers in Iraq

  NICARAGUA: Missile trouble continues

  DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Army captain extradited on drugs charges

  ECUADOR: Illegal immigrants found offshore

  VENEZUELA
  On 22 February US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher denounced President Hugo Chávez 's statement that the US could be plotting to kill him as "ridiculous and false". On Sunday's edition of his weekly TV show "Aló, Presidente!", Chávez said, "If they kill me, the name of the person responsible is [President] George Bush. If, by the hand of the devil, those perverse plans succeed... forget about Venezuelan oil, Mr Bush.". The war of words between Caracas and Washington has heated up over the past few weeks. On 16 February Porter Goss, the new CIA chief, placed Venezuela at the top of the list of Latin American countries described as "areas of concern", although the State Department has recently reiterated that there is no change in its policy towards Venezuela. On 20 February Nicolás Maduro, the head of Venezuela's congress and an ardent chavista, asked the business community to close ranks behind the president and "prepare for war". The following day the Venezuelan minister of communications and information, Andrés Izarra, accused the US government of promoting a media campaign designed to isolate Venezuela from the international community. Izarra identified three strands of the US's media campaign. First, the suggestion that Chávez supports international terrorism and is helping the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). Secondly, that he is a threat to the stability of the region because of his plans to purchase military equipment. Thirdly, that the Chávez administration is gradually moving towards an elected dictatorship. Izarra claimed that these ideas were propagated by such US sources as the Washington Times, The Miami Herald, Fox and repeated in local media such as the newspapers El Nacional and El Universal. When Boucher denied Chávez 's claims he reiterated that there was no change in the State Department's policy towards Venezuela.

  MEXICAN SOLDIERS IN IRAQ
  Although Mexico is not part of the US-led coalition that sent troops to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003, it nevertheless has the largest number of Latin Americans fighting in that country. At least 8,000 Mexicans are fighting as volunteers in the US armed forces. Altogether the US has around 110,000 Latinos in its armed forces. About half of them are of Mexican descent. Furthermore the US also has 37,000 non-citizens serving in its armed forces: of these 22,000 are Mexicans. All those who complete their service will be rewarded with US citizenship. US recruiters are particularly interested in getting Mexicans to sign up: around 13% of the US Marine Corps is now composed of men and women of Mexican descent. Of the first 1,000 US military personnel killed in Iraq, 122 were Latinos and 70 of them were of Mexican descent.

  NICARAGUA
  Missiles US officials from the State Department and the Pentagon flew to Managua on 22 February to put pressure on the government and the armed forces to destroy the country's remaining stockpiles of SAM-7 missiles. The US expressed its concern that the missiles could fall into the hands of terrorists after two men were arrested recently in connection with the sale of a missile on the black market. "I think we've been satisfied with some of the efforts the Nicaraguan government has made to destroy missiles - the sting operation that helped identify that there might be others out there," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. However, the US decided to send a mission to Nicaragua to try and resolve difficulties encountered by the government in destroying the remaining 1,000-odd missiles. The opposition-dominated national assembly approved a controversial arms law in December 2004 that requires the executive to seek approval for the destruction of the missiles from the legislature. The opposition objects to their destruction because, it argues, Nicaragua would become vulnerable to attack (in particular it fears the large air force of Honduras). Boucher continued: "...obviously, the vote creates difficulties, and that's one of the reasons why we want to get a team down there to try to work with them, to help make sure the government can fulfil the pledge that it made at very high levels." Boucher was referring to a promise made by President Enrique Bolaños to the secretary of state, Colin Powell, during his visit to Managua in 2003. The team is headed by Rose Likins, Acting Assistant Secretary for Political and Military Affairs.

  DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
  Army captain extradited to US A former captain in the Dominican army, Quirino Paulino Castillo, was extradited to the US on 19 February to face drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges. He was arrested in the Dominican Republic last December while allegedly transporting 3,051 pounds of cocaine in a truck. The US claims that he is the leader of a drug-trafficking network that has imported tonnes of cocaine into the US since 2003. The US Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Hans Hertell, claimed in January that top officials from the Dominican armed forces and anti-narcotics police force were implicated in drug smuggling. The former head of the Dominican armed forces, José Miguel Soto Jiménez, testified on 22 February to the public prosecutor in Santo Domingo in connection with the case, which has created a scandal in the Dominican Republic. Paulino is reputedly in possession of a fortune. A wealthy landowner, he was a key fundraiser for former President Hipólito Mejí­a and joined the army in September 2001 on Mejí­a's recommendation. He was dismissed for "irregular behavior" in 2003.

  ECUADOR
  Fifty-nine Ecuadorean immigrants were rescued by US coastguards on 22 February. The immigrants, who had been abandoned by the crew of a fishing boat taking them to the US, were found 300km north of the Galapagos islands.

• 2 March 2005

  02 March 2005 Hits: 67

  AGENDA FOR THE AMERICAS 2005: Report boosts case for Latin America

  HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT: Some findings politicised

  MEXICO: Harsh words from State Department

  CONDOLEZZA RICE: Secretary of State to visit Mexico

  FREE-TRADE AGREEMENTS: Andean region seeks consensus on intellectual property

  AGENDA FOR THE AMERICAS 2005
  Latin America has fallen down the US foreign policy agenda and must be restored to its rightful place. That is the conclusion of a special 19-page report released by a special task force on US policy in the Western Hemisphere set up by the Washington-based policy forum Inter-American Dialogue, entitled "Agenda for the Americas 2005" dated March 2005. The task force, which was led by Brazil's former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the former US trade representative Carla Hills (the Dialogue's co-chair and co-vice chair), was comprised of "public and private leaders from across the hemisphere, drawn from a diversity of nationalities, backgrounds, and political perspectives," the report says. The stated aim of the report was to express "the growing concerns of our members that US policy in the Americas is not adequately serving the interests of either Latin America or the Caribbean." The report, which is addressed to President George W Bush and senior US policy advisers in the executive branch, seeks to redress the balance by recommending four main policy initiatives: trade, migration, crime and violence, and democratic governance.

  1. Trade: "One constant exists for nearly all Latin American countries: their relations with the United States are not satisfactory," the report begins. In order to improve trade relations, the task force recommends "a broad inclusive strategy for the region" but stresses that "no single set of policies will suit all 33 countries". (This does not sound very different from the US government's current FTAA strategy of negotiating separate bilateral FTAs with a view to strengthening its hand when it comes to the big FTAA talks). However, the spirit of the report is different. It argues that the US should be prepared to compromise to make a breakthrough in the WTO Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations in order to set the stage for wrapping up a strong FTAA. It also urges US Congress to approve the contentious Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta) as a signal to Latin America that the US is committed to the regional trade agenda.

  2. Migration: The task force calls for a fresh approach. It argues that migration is not just a social and economic issue but has "critical political and security dimensions". It describes the current immigration policies as "inadequate" given the significant size of the Latino population in the US: some 11% of the US population (34m people) is foreign born, the majority from Latin America. The task force recommends two main courses of action: "an increased number of migrants to come to the United States each year to work legally for temporary periods (and) "developing procedures to regularise the situation of some migrants who first entered the US illegally". It says the US should start holding serious talks with Mexico as a priority and then extend these to include other nations.

  3. Crime & violence: The report says that crime and violence is a major threat to democratic stability and often poses, in the form of drug-trafficking and terrorism, a serious problem for the US. It is critical of US drug eradication and interdiction efforts in the Andean region which can "destabilize weak governments". Instead it calls for the US government to offer "support for economic and social development in rural areas (which) can strengthen law enforcement". It says that the US should engage the region more. It cites Haiti as an example: "Haiti is virtually a failed state that threatens internal violence and mass migration of its people to the United States." as well as being a drug-transhipment hub.

  4. Democratic governance: "The United States should always strive to protect electoral leaders. No matter how much it prefers one candidate to another, it should respect the electoral processes of other nations and avoid taking sides," the report notes. It goes on to explain that "Venezuela is a cause of grave concern" that can be addressed only through acting in concert with Latin American countries to apply "collective pressure" on Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez if democracy is undermined. It recommends a similar policy on Cuba. The US, it argues, is more likely to achieve its goals of democratic transition though cooperation with other countries in the region and European nations than through acting alone. Finally, the report urges the US to "fully engage Brazil and Mexico on every issue of hemispheric significance." It says that Washington should see Brazil's growing influence as positive as it allows for more strategic collaboration with the US- on Haiti, for instance, and Doha.

  HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT
  The US State Department released its report on human rights, on 28 February. It singled out Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and the Dominican Republic as giving particular cause for concern. The Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) said that many of the Latin American reports are "useful and generally impartial summaries of the human rights situation in particular countries." It added a caveat, however: "political considerations are evident in some of the findings (and) US government policy priorities are affecting the evaluation of the data in some cases."

  Wola claims that there was a "glaring discrepancy" between the treatment of Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia. It says that while the State Department summarised Venezuela's human rights record as "poor;" due to "unlawful killings by security forces, police links to death squads, threats and intimidation of non-governmental organizations, and politicization of the judiciary, Colombia benefits from a much more positive reading in spite of an increase in extrajudicial killings committed by state security forces, continuing collaboration between security forces and illegal paramilitary organizations, the killing of at least 19 human rights defenders, and paramilitary penetration of the national Attorney General's office." Ecuador's purging of its Supreme Court, Wola adds, barely gets a mention, even though the Inter-American Human Rights Commission is reviewing the situation and the UN's Special Rapporteur on judicial independence is planning an emergency mission to the country. Finally, Wola claims that coverage of the human rights situation in Haiti is "unsatisfactory, and unbalanced". It argues that while the report recognises that there have been many arrests made without warrants, it fails to convey either the extent of illegal detentions, or their political nature

  MEXICO
  The State Department's annual report of Human Rights around the world had some harsh words for Mexico. It categorised Mexico as one of the countries which was lagging behind in this area, highlighting the thousands (at least 3,000, the State Department claimed) of kidnappings and the shortcoming of the police and judiciary. The State Department claimed that torture was still widespread and that the police and judiciary were often corrupt, inefficient and, in effect, a law to themselves. Mexico's foreign ministry said that the report was one-eyed and contrasted it with more balanced reports from both the UN and the Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. The independent Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos went further: it said that the US "lacked the moral authority to judge other countries' human rights' records."

  CONDOLEZZA RICE
  The US Secretary of State is to visit Mexico and meet President Vicente Fox on 10 March. She will also have a meeting with the Mexican foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez. The meeting is likely to settle the agenda for the forthcoming summit between President Fox and President George W Bush, which is scheduled for this month, though the date has yet to be fixed. At the beginning of February President Bush invited President Fox to meet him "in early March." The Canadian prime minister, Paul Martin, is also likely to attend this meeting. Condolezza Rica last visited Mexico as US National Security Adviser in February 2001.

  ANDEAN FREE-TRADE AGREEMENTS
  Trade representatives from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru met in Quito on 1 March to decide on what they would accept as a "bare minimum" proposal on intellectual property rights from the US during the current round of free-trade negotiations. The Andean countries are particularly concerned about how to protect native medicines and biodiversity from a potentially harmful free-trade deal. Many indigenous groups fear that US firms' patents on Amazonian plants and animals will prevent them from marketing their traditional products which contain the same species. A US firm recently patented the ayahuasca plant, commonly used as a medicine by the indigenous people in the area.

• 9 March 2005

  09 March 2005 Hits: 66

  IMMIGRATION: Supreme court rules in favour of employment rights

  URUGUAY: US happy to work with Vázquez

  VENEZUELA: US warned Chavez over assasination attempt

  BRAZIL: WTO favours Brazil over US on cotton subsidies

  ECUADOR: US warning over increase in violence

  IMMIGRATION
  The US Supreme Court ruled on 7 March that employers could not question the immigration status of a group of Latin American and Asian women who were suing their employers for discrimination. The Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a lower court, in San Francisco, against NIBCO Incorporated. The lower court had ruled that the women's immigration status was immaterial to their case that their employment rights had been infringed. The women allege that the company was discriminating against them on the grounds of their origins. The action against NIBCO, in Fresno, California, was led by Martha Rivera and 22 other female workers. The plant makes pipes and valves. The women claim that the company mandated skills tests, but gave the instructions only in English. Workers who did badly in the tests saw their employment categories lowered and were eventually dismissed in 1998. The employees who took legal action against this discrimination were confronted in the pre-trial disclosure process by a demand from NIBCO that they should disclose their immigration status. The Supreme Court decision means that the 5.3m undocumented workers in the US will be able to assert their employment rights without fear of being deported.

  URUGUAY
  The US said on 3 March that it was confident it could work with the new leftwing Uruguayan government. The White House's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said that President George W Bush wanted to work with President Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay, on "joint priorities" for the region. McClellan dodged commenting on Vázquez's decision to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba as soon as he took office on 1 March and to seek closer relations with Venezuela. The US government has made no secret of its view that Venezuela is a source of destabilisation in the region.

  VENEZUELA
  On 7 March the US ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, confirmed the story of Vice-president José Vicente Rangel that the previous US ambassador, Charles Shapiro, had warned President Hugo Chávez about a plot to assassinate him. On 6 March Rangel gave an interview to the Peruvian daily El Comercio, in which he said that Shapiro was the source of Chávez 's recent claims about a plot to kill him. This was confirmed by Brownfield, in an interview with the anti-Chávez daily El Universal, who said that Shapiro had warned Chávez about both the coup of April 2002 and a possible assassination plot. Brownfield filled in some of the details that Rangel omitted. "Vice-president Rangel is telling the truth in his declarations. The truth is that on two occasions the ambassador Charles Shapiro informed the Venezuelan authorities about plans against the current administration," he said. According to Brownfield, the first occasion was in April 2002, when Shapiro spoke to Chávez about the possibility of a coup. "The second time was in September or October. At this time he spoke with vice-president Rangel about a possible assassination attempt," Brownfield said. Since he did not specify the year, we assume cautiously that he meant 2002.

  WTO FAVOURS BRAZIL
  The World Trade Organization (WTO) favoured Brazil on its final ruling over US cotton subsidies delivered on 3 March. The US government has now until 1 July to reform its credit program to cotton exporters and 15 months to eliminate domestic subsidies. If the US does not comply with the WTO's decision, the Brazilian government will be allowed to retaliate. Brazil complained that the US government's subsidies cause annual losses of US$480m to the Brazilian cotton industry. Brazil alleged that the US kept its place as the world's second-largest cotton grower and largest exporter because the US government paid US$12.5bn in subsidies to American farmers from August 1999 to July 2003. According to the Brazilian foreign office's statement, the WTO ruling does not only benefit Brazil, but will "influence dramatically the numbers relative to [global] poverty". The WTO also accepted Brazilian arguments that US subsidies to soya, maize and rice exporters are illegal.

  ECUADOR
  On 8 March Glenn Warren, the press secretary at the US embassy in Quito, gave a briefing to express the US's concern over the recent increase in political violence in Ecuador. “We condemn any act of violence or threat against members of civil organisations. We believe that it is extremely important that political expression is communicated via civilised discussion and not through violence," he said. In particular he referred to the damage inflicted on the Quito offices of Participación Ciudadana on 7 March. Participación Ciudadana, an offshoot of the non-governmental organisation Cero Corrupción, has come out strongly in support of the original supreme court, 27 of whose 31 judges were replaced by congress in December. Over the past few months, 10 politicians have been attacked and damage inflicted on both government and opposition property.

• 16 March 2005

  16 March 2005 Hits: 78

  SURINAME: US to cut ties if Bouterse wins election

  ARAB-SOUTH AMERICAN SUMMIT: State Department wants to observe

  MEXICAN BORDER: McCain suggests militarisation

  CHILE: Senate subcommittee finds more of Pinochet's secret accounts

  VENEZUELA: Craddock claims neighbours worried over arms purchases

  SURINAME
  The US will sever diplomatic ties with Suriname if the former Dutch colony elects Desi Bouterse, a former military dictator, as president in June 2005, the US embassy in Paramaribo said in a statement released last week. Bouterse will run in the elections on the Nationale Democratische Partij (NDP) ticket. Bouterse ruled the country from 1980-87 and from 1990-91. In 1999 Bouterse was sentenced to an 11-year prison term by a court in the Netherlands for cocaine trafficking. He was also indicted in December 2004 by a Surinamese military court for the December 1982 "deliberate and premeditated" murder of 15 opponents of his regime. The trial is expected to begin in late March, which is likely to inhibit his movements during the electoral campaign.

  However, he remains popular and, if a recent Instituut voor Democratie en Onderzoek (IDOS) poll is to be believed, he could be elected. The president of Suriname is elected indirectly by a two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly. Suriname goes to the polls on May 25 to choose a new parliament, which will then elect a president in June. "The US and many other countries will find it difficult to work with a government headed by a convicted drug-trafficker," the statement read. "We hope that the Suriname people choose someone who has proven to have committed himself to democracy. Certain choices will have consequences for the country's international image," the embassy added. Jenny Simons, the head of the NDP in parliament, said that the party was concerned that the statement might influence voters. Bouterse himself dismissed the statement as an "enormous psychological blunder". He said the US was violating UN Resolution 50/172 by meddling in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country. Dutch MPs have also started debating what response the Netherlands would give to a Bouterse victory.

  ARAB-SOUTH AMERICAN SUMMIT
  The US State Department has made an official request to the Brazilian foreign office, Itamaraty, to be allowed to participate, as an observer, in the Arab-Latin American summit to be held in May in Brasí­lia. The US government is said to be "worried" about the possible political repercussions the summit might have on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The State Department fears that declarations, not least by the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez , might damage US efforts in the peace process. The US administration is also concerned that the summit will widen the peace mediation channels, currently made by the US, the EU, Russia and the UN. Brazil wants to collaborate more actively in the peace process and the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has already said he would like more participation from developing nations in the negotiations. The most controversial issue, however, is the way terrorism will be defined in the summit's final declaration. A leaked document shows that the Arab and South American leaders tend to agree that some forms of terrorism are "legitimate", instead of following the current US administration's broader definition. According to Brazilian diplomats, the idea initially was not to allow "observers" in. The Itamaraty insists that the main reason for the summit is not "political" but to strengthen "economic and cultural links" between the two regions.

  MEXICAN BORDER
  John McCain, a Republican senator for Arizona, appointed by President George W Bush to come up with a policy on immigration, suggested on 15 March that the US should think about militarising the border. McCain told the influential Senate Armed Forces Committee that he had previously rejected the idea of deploying troops to seal the border, but now he thought it would a good time to revisit the idea. President Bush is hosting a meeting with President Vicente Fox from Mexico and Paul Martin from Canada on 23 March. McCain said that he had changed his mind about militarisation because he thought that the surge in illegal immigration from Mexico could provide cover for terrorists crossing into the US. McCain admitted that the claim that terrorists could pose as illegal immigrants and cross from Mexico into the US has no clear evidence to back it up, but it said that it was a possibility. The idea that terrorists could cross from Mexico was first floated by the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, and then was repeated by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who visited Mexico on 10 March. McCain argued that if millions of people were crossing the border illegally, sooner or later terrorists would join them. McCain comes from Arizona where anti-migrant feelings are running high; he said that the border was completely out of control.

  CHILE
  A US Senate subcommittee found that former general Augusto Pinochet had numerous secret bank accounts in the US, Spain, Gibraltar, Switzerland, the UK and other countries. According to the findings of the Senate investigations subcommittee, published on 15 March, Pinochet held more than US$10m in over 125 separate bank accounts in the US alone between 1981 and 2002. This figure has risen from the original estimate of between US$4m and US$8m made by the Senate commission in its first report released in July 2004. The former dictator had 28 accounts at Riggs Bank and at least 100 more at six other banks in the US. The report, meant to investigate irregularities in the US banking system, will help Chilean Judge Sergio Muñoz in his own investigations of Pinochet's financial irregularities.

  VENEZUELA
  On 15 March General Bantz Craddock, the commander-in-chief of the US Southern Command, said that Venezuela's neighbours shared the US government's concerns about President Hugo Chávez 's purchase of new weapons, including 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and up to 40 military helicopters from Russia. Chávez 's purchase of these arms “is disturbing, and we are analyzing it closely," Craddock said in a hearing at the US Senate armed forces committee. “We have talked with Venezuela's neighbours, and there is now some concern on their part," Craddock added. The possibility that the AK-47s could end up in the hands of Colombian guerrillas or other armed groups in the region “would be something very, very bad," Craddock said. On 16 March the Venezuelan vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, said that none of his country's neighbours shared Washington's concerns.

• 23 March 2005

  23 March 2005 Hits: 74

  CAFTA: Congressional debate due in April

  RUMSFELD VISITS: US Defence Secretary heads to Argentina, Brazil

  BOLIVIA: Hydrocarbons law not an issue for US government

  MIGRATION: Pew Center publishes migration figures

  TRADE: Rob Portman takes over from Zoellick

  CAFTA
  The Congressional debate of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) looks set to be hard fought. Democrats and their labour allies have criticised CAFTA as harmful to workers in both the US and Central America, whereas the Bush administration claim the agreement's opponents are merely anti-Hispanic. The US government says that CAFTA is the best way of encouraging economic and political reform in the region, because it will help attract investment and jobs to Central America, while discouraging its textile industry from leaving for China. Opponents argue that the deal will set off a race to the bottom, as CAFTA will not require Central American governments to protect workers or ban child labour and could devastate the region's farm economies with a flood of US corn and rice. Congress is due to start debating the agreement on 6 April.

  RUMSFELD VISITS
  US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld travelled to Buenos Aires on 21 March to meet his Argentine counterpart, José Pampuro, to discuss several topics ranging from the installation of a radar system to monitor Argentine air space - expected to cost Argentina US$800m over five years - to peacekeeping efforts in Haiti. The two men also talked about the 'shootdown' law which Argentina is planning to introduce to curb the growing number of illegal flights in northern border areas. Pampuro claims that these are an indication that there is considerable drug-trafficking activity going on in the area. Rumsfeld moved on to Brazil on 22 March to meet with President Lula da Silva and the vice-President and defence minister, José Alencar. The meeting focused on Rumsfeld's evaluation of the situation in the Middle East. Next May, Brazil will host the Arab-Latin American summit and the US has requested observer status. The Brazilian foreign office's position so far has been one of not allowing observers at the summit.

  BOLIVIA
  The US ambassador to Bolivia, David Greenlee, said on 22 March that it would be up to foreign energy companies to challenge any change to the hydrocarbons law. He said that if the companies thought the law was confiscatory, they should go to court. He said that the proposed changes were not an issue involving the US government. There are two US oil companies operating in Bolivia: ExxonMobil and Vintage. Greenlee was speaking to the press during a seminar on Governability and Conflicts, organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in La Paz. Greenlee added that he was not advising US companies not to invest in Bolivia. He said that they could make up their own minds. He concluded, cryptically, by saying that although things in Bolivia were complicated, institutionality and democracy had all the avenues for providing solutions.

  MIGRATION
  The Pew Hispanic Center claimed on 21 Monday that there were 10.3m illegal migrants in the US in 2004. The Pew Center, analysing government data, concluded that the number of illegal immigrants in the US increased from 8.3m (ie by 23%) in the four years from March 2000 to March 2004. The Pew Center argued that the border controls introduced by the US had not cut the flow of migrants. Mexicans are by far the largest group of illegal migrants, numbering 5.9m. A further 2.5m of the illegal migrants come from elsewhere in Latin America.

  TRADE
  On 18 March, President George W Bush appointed Rob Portman, a 49 year-old lawyer as the new US Trade Representative. Portman takes over from Robert Zoellick, who is now number two at the State department. The US Trade Representative handles all trade negotiations and squabbles. Portman has been a Republican congressman for Ohio and led President George W Bush's re-election campaign in that crucial swing state. Portman's appointment has to be confirmed by the (Republican dominated) senate.

• 30 March 2005

  30 March 2005 Hits: 251

  ARGENTINA AND VENEZUELA: Bush calls Kirchner

  RUMSFELD VISITS: Renewal of military aid to Guatemala.

  CRAWFORD SUMMIT: Bush meets Fox and Martin

  MIGRATION: Border walls

  BRAZIL :   Subsidies are as damaging as piracy

  ARGENTINA: Debt-swap delay

  CUBA: Posada Carriles in Miami  

  ARGENTINA AND VENEZUELA
  President George Bush called his Argentine counterpart Néstor Kirchner on 29 March. The bulk of his 20-minute telephone conversation with Kirchner seemed to revolve around Venezuela. Bush said he was concerned that Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez had links with Colombia's Farc guerrillas, was compiling a weapons' stockpile and was resorting to authoritarian methods. Bush said that he looked to Argentina, and Brazil, to provide stability in the region. President Lula da Silva of Brazil defended Chávez 's right to buy armaments on 29 March during a four-way summit in the southern Venezuelan city of Ciudad Guayana with Chávez , President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia and the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Zapatero. During a visit to Brazil last week, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, criticised the announcement that Venezuela would buy armaments from Russia. According to Lula, Venezuela "has the right to be a sovereign country", stating that "South America can resolve its own issues alone".

  RUMSFELD VISITS
  The US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, announced on 24 March that the US would be unfreezing US$3.2m in military aid to Guatemala during talks with President Oscar Berger in Guatemala. The renewal of military assistance to Guatemala angered human rights organisations. Rumsfeld's gesture comes in response to Guatemala's efforts to overhaul its armed forces in line with recommendations from Washington to create a 'reasonable balance' of armed forces in the subregion. In June 2004, Berger downsized the army from 27,000 troops- by far the largest army in Central America- to 15,500; a figure more in line with Guatemala's neighbours. Rumsfeld said he was "impressed" by the reforms. "Transforming armed forces is a daunting task, and you have handled it well," he said, adding "I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who once said that trying to transform the Army of the United States was like trying to empty the Potomac River with a teaspoon. It isn't easy." He also thanked Berger for sending some troops to help with peacekeeping efforts in Haiti, a departure from the army's traditional role in countering internal guerilla warfare. Rumsfeld concluded by suggesting that "this is a magic moment for Central America. "That the countries of this region are all working together in a constructive way and leaning forward in support of democracy, in support of economic opportunity and recognize that cooperation with respect to security is central to their success in that regard," he said.

  CRAWFORD SUMMIT
  The meeting between Presidents George W Bush and Vicente Fox plus the prime minister of Canada, Paul Martin, on 23 March produced few tangible results and disappointed the Mexicans who had hoped for a gesture from President Bush to improve immigrants' rights in the US. The absence of such a gesture means that relations between Mexico and the US are likely to remain testy for the immediate future. Mexico is showing signs of toning down its criticism of human rights in Cuba: how Mexico votes, at the UN Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva in April, is likely to be the next test of US-Mexican relations. In the past couple of years Mexico has voted against Cuba, triggering a torrent of abuse from Cuba that led, in 2004, to a rupture in diplomatic relations. This year, the US has been unable to find a country to lead the criticism of human rights in Cuba. Mexican officials were relieved on 23 March that eventually President Fox did have a 20 minute one-to-one session with President Bush after lunch. The result of this, however, was that Mexico agreed to stop pushing for a new deal for migrants to the US. Fox said that Mexico would leave the issue in the hands of the US president and accept whatever resulted. Bush immediately briefed the US press on how difficult it would be to get a guest-worker deal though congress. The US press interpreted this as the administration backing away from attempting to push through a guest-worker law. Among the firm results of the summit was a commitment from the three leaders to hold regular summits. They agreed to clear away some bureaucratic impedimenta to help trade between the three countries. The three leaders also agreed on and sign an Alliance for Security and Prosperity, which is designed to eliminate the bureaucratic impedimenta. Significantly for Mexico, immigration did not feature as one of the 12 ministerial working groups of the Alliance.

  MIGRATION
  The chairmen of the Judicial Affairs and Armed Forces committees in the US senate called on the senate to approve the construction of another two border walls to reinforce the current barrier, built in 1993. The two senators, James Sensenbrenner (Judicial Affairs) and Duncan Hunter (Armed Forces), held a joint press conference at Imperial Beach, on the border on 29 March to publicise their appeal. The idea is that the two new barbed wire walls should run for 5km.
  
  BRAZIL
  The Brazilian minister of development, Luiz Fernando Furlan, said on 29 March that Brazil also "suffers from unlawful competition, but concealed as subsidies" from the US. The outburst came in response to the Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who accused Brazil of not doing enough to protect US intellectual property rights during the seminar 'Brazil against Piracy'. Furlan told Coleman to "take the message to [his] peers", in reference to Property Rights Defenders' request to the US trade department to punish Brazil last week. After Furlan's outburst, Coleman decided to take a more conciliatory approach saying only that the minister had "reflected the reality", but insisted that piracy was an obstacle. In order to reduce tension, Coleman declared his personal support for Brazil's inclusion in the UN Security Council permanently.

  ARGENTINA
  On 29 March a US judge gave an eleventh-hour reprieve to creditors fighting for better payment terms from Argentina's debt restructuring. After a two-hour hearing Judge Thomas Griesa of the US District Court in Manhattan responded to a petition from creditors to maintain a freeze on US$7bn in defaulted bonds that are due to be swapped into new securities on 1 April. Lawyers for Argentina had requested that the attachment orders, first issued by Griesa on 21 March, be removed so that the government could go ahead with its new bond issue.

  CUBA  
  Luis Posada Carriles has appeared before US immigration in Miami, the Spanish news agency Efe reported on 29 March. Posada Carriles is a veteran of the abortive 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and wanted by both Venezuela and Cuba for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban aeroplane that killed 73 people and the bombing of six Havana hotels in 1997, which left one dead and 11 injured. He was arrested in Panama in 2000, after Havana claimed that he had plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro at the Ibero-American summit in Panama. Cuba severed diplomatic relations with Panama after former president Mireya Moscoso decided, as a parting gesture in August 2004, to pardon and release Posada Carriles, and three others. Posada Carriles fled the country and, until now, had dipped below the radar.

• 06 April 2005

  06 April 2005 Hits: 104

  PANAMA: Bantz Craddock meets Torrijos

  CUBA: Zoellick criticises EU policy

  ARGENTINA: Rice meets with Bielsa

  CAFTA: Central Americas attempt to convince Democrats

  FLORIDA: Impressive growth in trade with Latin America in 2004

  MEXICO: Disappointing turnout for Minuteman Project

  PANAMA
  The head of the US South Command, Bantz Craddock, met President Martí­n Torrijos on 4 April. The two men discussed security cooperation and the “New Horizons" community aid initiative, which was implemented in February. Under the programme, the US troops in the town of Macaracas on the peninsula of Azuero have been working on construction projects such as building schools, roads and clinics. Craddock also visited Honduras and El Salvador. Panama's interior minister, Héctor Alemán, travelled to the US on 5 April to meet top officials from the US State and Defense departments to talk about terrorism, drug-trafficking and regional security issues, including maritime security of the Panama Canal.

  CUBA
  The US deputy secretary of state, Robert Zoellick, expressed his doubts about the European Union's new Cuba policy on 5 April. “Some countries in Europe suggest that a different focus will offer better opportunities to dissidents to participate in Cuban society. We don't see this. Actually, there is even greater repression," said Zoellick, who wrapped up a week-long visit to 14 European capitals on 5 April - his first trip in his new post. The EU has come in for some sharp criticism from the US as well as human-rights activists for normalising ties with Cuba (albeit only on a temporary basis for six months) and abandoning its principled stand on the dissidents who were rounded up and imprisoned without trial in June 2003.

  ARGENTINA
  The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, met her Argentine counterpart, Rafael Bielsa, in Washington on 31 March. Bielsa's visit was the latest in a series of high-level contacts between the US and Argentina in recent weeks. The 45-minute talk centred on Argentina's negotiations with the IMF over a new credit agreement, for which Bielsa is seeking US support. The spokesman for the Argentine foreign ministry, Oscar Feito, said that Rice was “receptive". Contrary to many media reports the talks did not, according to Feito, revolve around US efforts to enlist Argentine support to isolate Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez .

  CAFTA
  Ministers from the governments of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic attended a meeting in Washington on 5 April in order to persuade Democrats opposed to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that they would enforce the pact's labour laws. The ministers claimed that the CAFTA agreement would reduce trade barriers and taxes on US exports, enabling the growth of democracy in Central America while also protecting US economic interests. However, Democratic lawmakers, particularly those with links to the sugar, farming and textile manufacturing industries, are determined to put an end to the pact, citing the Central American countries' slack labour laws. "There are still no fewer than 20 areas in which the CAFTA countries' labour laws fail to comply with even the most basic international norms," said Charles Rangel, the most senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

  FLORIDA
  The strong growth in Latin America in 2004 helped trade between the region and Florida to rise by 13.3% in 2004 to US$50.65bn, according to figures from Enterprise Florida, published on 4 April.. The UN's Comisión Económica para América Latina reckons that Latin America grew by 5.5% in 2004. This was the best performance since 1980. Brazil is Florida's main trading partner followed by, in descending order: the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Chile and Argentina. Brazil's trade with Florida came to US$10.5bn in 2004, up 22% on 2003. Trade between Florida and Venezuela rose by 97%, after falling by 27% between 2002 and 2003.

  MEXICO
  The Minuteman Project, under which private US citizen militias appointed themselves to patrol the Arizona desert border with Mexico, has attracted a lot of attention but so far there has been little violence. Organisers of the Minuteman Project, headed by a local anti-immigration activist, Chris Simcox, had expected around 1,000 heavily-armed activists to report for their self-appointed duty, but when the project began on 1 April only 480 turned up. Few of them were armed. In 2002 Simcox promised to train 600 members of Civil Homeland Defense but he mustered fewer than 50. Over the first weekend of the Minuteman Project, 70 undocumented Mexicans were caught and repatriated. Mexican officials said that none of those caught reported that they had been maltreated.

• 13 April 2005

  20 April 2005 Hits: 86

  CAFTA: US congress begins debate

  PANAMA: Rice meets Navarro

  TERRORISM: General Myers talks tough on Venezuela

  OAS: Regional body fail to decide on new secretary general

  GROWTH IN REGION: US sees encouraging signs

  CAFTA
  US Congress begins debating the Central American free-trade agreement (Cafta) today (13 April). The Senate Finance Committee and a House International Relations subcommittee are scheduled to hold hearings on Cafta. While the Senate is expected to approve Cafta, its passage through the lower house looks problematic. Lobbying for and against Cafta is strong. Business associations and some of the country's biggest farm groups are keen to push Cafta through Congress while organised labour, domestic textile manufacturers and sugar producers are determined to derail it. The Washington Times cites Frank Vargo, vice-president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers. “If the United States is afraid to enter into a trade agreement with six little countries ... what does that tell you about the willingness of the United States to enter into any trade agreement?" Vargo said.

  PANAMA
  The vice-president and foreign affairs minister of Panama, Samuel Lewis Navarro, met US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, in Washington for talks which embraced the mooted expansion of the Panama Canal, a stalled free-trade agreement, drug and arms trafficking and terrorism. The Panamanian government is considering a major US$4bn-6bn widening plan to accommodate the new post-Panamax ships. The constitution requires that any decision on the widening of the Canal be put to the Panamanian people in a referendum. Lewis said that “as soon as the referendum is held in our country is held we will go out to different capitals and present it as a national project". President Martí­n Torrijos is expected to discuss the expansion of the Canal in more detail when he travels to Washington to meet President George Bush at the end of April.

  TERRORISM
  The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, spoke out on 11 April against countries that were “disturbing stability" in Latin America and undermining the fight against terrorism. Speaking at a press conference in Bogotá, Colombia, Myers said “In this region every country has to fight against a common enemy (terrorism) and we cannot have countries disturbing stability in ways that do not help to combat this threat". Myers was responding to a question about the US reaction to Venezuelan complaints about the US meddling in its domestic affairs. “It's like Iraq: you can't have neighbours of Iraq, in the case of Syria and Iran, that are not helping with that stability," Myers went on. Separately, Myers sounded upbeat about the war in Colombia. “We're winning the fight in Colombia, and must keep the pressure on," he said.

  OAS
  On 11 April the election to decide the new secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS) ended in a tie after five rounds of voting. Member states will try again on 2 May. The two candidates, Chile's José Miguel Insulza and Mexico's Luis Ernesto Derbez, received 17 votes each in five secret ballots. Peter Hakim, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank, said the election exposed a gulf between countries with close ties to the US and others, especially in South America, that resist Washington's influence. The US has initially backed Francisco Flores, a former president of El Salvador who supported the Iraq war, and then voted for Derbez when Flores withdrew on 8 April. "This was the US's chance to recast its relationship with Latin America - a relationship that has deteriorated over the last 10 years," said Graciela Romer, a political analyst in Buenos Aires. "The US doesn't like Insulza because he is the candidate of the left but it is time the US started to look at Latin America from a different perspective. It is still haunted by the ghosts of the 1970s left but the fact is the left is different today." Both Derbez and Insulza have vowed to stand again on 2 May but the OAS said it would reopen the field to other candidates. Peru was reported to be considering proposing its foreign minister, Manuel Rodrí­guez, as a possible compromise.

  GROWTH IN REGION
  Speaking on 10 April at a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Okinawa, Japan, John Taylor, the US Treasury Department's under secretary for international affairs said that improved policies and strong leadership in Latin America explain why the region's economies have improved in recent years. He said economic reforms in the region have built financial stability and confidence, "leading to increasing capital flows, higher levels of investment, and rapid export growth." He added that forecasters expect to see continued economic expansion in Latin America, but that the region faced two major challenges. The first is to "lock in" recent improvements in macroeconomic policy by putting in place "fiscal-responsibility regimes that discipline budget planning and execution" and by supporting what have proven to be "successful low-inflation monetary policies." The second challenge is to concentrate on "microeconomic reform, including trade liberalization and the reduction of burdensome regulation, in order to unleash job creation by entrepreneurs both small and large." Taylor said the US intends to work hard to help ensure that the November 2005 Summit of the Americas in Argentina improves the lives of people in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• 20 April 2005

  20 April 2005 Hits: 171

  CUBA: Anti-Castro activist applies for asylum in US

  CUBA: US deports alleged spy

  CUBA: US present resolution on human rights at UNCHR

  ECUADOR: Support for Gutiérrez beginning to cool?

  CALIFORNIA: Schwarzenegger calls for closure of borders

  CUBA
  An anti-Castro activist, Luis Posada Carriles, 77, has embarrassed the US over his application for asylum there. Posada Carriles is currently in Miami and his lawyer said, on 13 April, that he has applied for asylum. The US authorities say that they do not know where he is and if he is in the US he will be arrested: they add that they have not received an application for asylum. Posada Carriles, a former member of the Central Intelligence Agency and the US army, was accused by the Cubans of orchestrating the explosion on a Cuban aeroplane in 1976 which killed 73 people and of plotting to kill President Castro at the Inter-american summit in Panama in 2000.

  Panama's president, Mireya Moscoso, pardoned Posada Carriles just before she left office in 2004. He and three colleagues had been sentenced to seven years in gaol for security offences. He was not prosecuted for trying to kill Castro. Cuba maintains that Posada Carriles is a terrorist. On 14 April, the US Department of State refused to comment on whether Posada Carriles has sought asylum in the US. At least one US Representative, William Dellahunt, a Democrat, said that granting Posada Carriles asylum would destroy US credibility in the war against terrorism. Castro said that the best policy for the US would be to deport Posada Carriles to Venezuela. Castro said on 18 April, the fifth consecutive day in which he had talked publicly about Posada Carriles, that Cuba waived its rights to prosecute him: Castro admitted that such a prosecution would be portrayed by his enemies as a show trial. Posada Carriles escaped from a prison in Venezuela while appealing against his conviction for the aeroplane explosion.

  CUBA
  The US deported an alleged Cuban spy on 19 April. The spy, Juan Emilio Aboy, was alleged to be part of the Red Wasp network. He had been on hunger strike for 34 days. A US court found Aboy guilty of breaking an immigration rule: any foreigner who has received espionage training has to register with the federal authorities. Aboy also omitted to mention in his application to enter the US that he had served with the Cuban armed forces and was a member of a group connected to the Cuban communist party.

  CUBA
  On 14 April the US presented a resolution on the human rights situation in Cuba to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). This happens every year, only this time the US presented the resolution directly, rather than by proxy as has been its wont in the past. Also the wording of the resolution was noticeably toned down in order to attract more support. It requested merely that the UN extend the mandate of its special rapporteur on Cuba's human rights, Christine Chanet, whose attempts to visit Cuba since she was appointed in 2003 have been thwarted by the government of President Fidel Castro. The resolution made no precise reference to human-rights violations and did not even ask Havana to receive Chanet. The vote was passed by 21 votes to 17 with 15 abstentions. In 2004 a tougher resolution censuring Cuba for human-rights violations narrowly passed with 22 votes in favour, 21 against and 10 abstentions.

  ECUADOR
  Kristie Kenney, the US ambassador to Ecuador, published an ambiguous statement on the embassy's website on 15 April, shortly after President Gutiérrez had appeared on television to announce the dissolution of the supreme court and declare a state of emergency. "The United States does not presume to tell Ecuador's democratically-elected government, nor its people, how to conduct its internal affairs. Only the Ecuadorean people can decide which path is the correct one to follow." She went on to add, "a cornerstone of democracy is an independent and impartial judiciary. A rule of law assures citizens that the decisions that govern people's lives are based on the constitution and legal premises, not on shifting political power or the pressures of a temporary majority". The Gutiérrez administration continues to claim it enjoys the support of the US. On 18 April the Quito-based embassy merely reported that Kenney had had a had a 'routine' meeting with Gutiérrez, and welcomed the decision taken by congress, which ratified the dissolution of the supreme court, as a first step towards the resolution of the crisis.

  CALIFORNIA
  On 19 April the Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, called for the US to beef up enforcement and secure the state's borders against illegal immigrants. "Close the borders. Close the border in California and all across Mexico and the US," he told the Newspaper Association of America's convention in San Francisco. His press security, Margita Thompson, was quick to clarify the governor's remarks. She said that he did not mean that there should be an end of legal immigration. Schwarzenegger himself is a migrant from Austria to the US. The governor's political opponents in the Democrats said that Schwarzenegger's statements reflect the approach of "political extremists not rational policymakers". Schwarzenegger's term ends next year. It still not clear whether he will run for re-election. California is considered to be a Democrat bastion.

• 27 April 2005

  27 April 2005 Hits: 100

  OAS: Rice talks of consensus candidate for top job

  MEXICO: US issue warning over law and order on border

  VENEZUELA: Brazil and US disagree over democratic charter

  BRAZIL: Rice and Amorim discuss FTAA and Arab-South American summit

  CENTRAL AMERICA: Head of Southcom visits

  OAS
  The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who began a trip to Latin America on 26 April, said that the US was in favour of a consensus candidate for the post of secretary general of the Organization of American States. On 11 April two candidates, Luis Ernesto Derbez, Mexico's foreign minister, and Jose Miguel Insulza, Chile's interior minister, went through five rounds of voting at which they each received 17 of the 34 votes. Rice, who was speaking on her flight down to Brazil, her first stop, said that she would consult with leaders in the region. She said that the US supported Derbez, but would be happy with Insulza. She emphasised how lukewarm this endorsement was by saying that the OAS could not afford splits; this is an allusion to the fact that only Chile's enemies in South America back Derbez. The OAS election is scheduled for 2 May in Washington.

  MEXICO
  The US issued another warning about law and order in Mexico on 26 April. The State Department warned travellers of kidnapping and murder along the border with the US. The State Department said that in the past few months violence had increased in and around the border town of Nuevo Laredo, in the state of Tamaulipas. The State Department added that in the past eight months 30 US citizens had either been killed or kidnapped in Tamaulipas. The law and order issue is sensitive for the Mexican government: it responded angrily in January this year when first the State Department issued its alert and then, simultaneously, the US ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, said that Mexico was losing the war against drug gangs. The State Department said that the alert repeated what it had said in January and would remain valid until the end of July.

  VENEZUELA
  The Brazilian and the US governments do not agree on the democratic credentials of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez . Celso Amorim, the Brazilian foreign minister, was clear when he stated that Brazil is a “friend of Venezuela and of the Venezuelan people" during the visit of the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to Brazil on 26 April. According to the Brazilian government, the referendum held in Venezuela last August confirms that the Chávez administration has the Venezuelans' backing, making the government democratic. Rice, however, was also emphatic when she reminded the Brazilian government that the Organization of American States's (OAS) democratic charter, of which Venezuela is a signatory, states that for a nation to be considered democratic it has to adopt “public policies that guarantee freedom". The US government is pressuring the OAS to use the democratic charter against Chávez . The Brazilian presidency's chief-of-staff, José Dirceu, visited Chávez on 25 April ahead of Rice's visit to Brazil. The Brazilian press ran several articles saying that the objective of Dirceu's visit was to start the intermediation of talks between the US and Venezuelan governments. The claim was denied by Marco Aurélio Garcia, President Lula da Silva's special aide for international relations.

  BRAZIL
  The Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, talked about South American integration, WTO negotiations, reform of the UN Security Council and the Brazilian mission in Haiti among other issues during Rice's visit to Brazil on 26 April. Apart from the “Venezuelan issue", two other topics were prominent: the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA) negotiations and the Arab-South American summit that will be held from 10 May in Brasí­lia. On the subject of the FTAA, Amorim denied that President Lula had declared negotiations “closed" as published by several Brazilian newspapers. The FTAA's negotiations were brought to a halt by the Brazilian government which gives priority to Mercosur. Amorim said the issue was not about whether to “negotiate or not, but how to reach an agreement". Rice was also curious about the Arab-South American summit, for which the US was denied observer status. According to Rice, the US government is “happy" because the meeting would open up business opportunities for the countries involved. In response to the US government's fear that the summit will turn into criticism to Israel, Amorim declared its objective to be “cooperation and peace in the Middle East". Rice and Amorim said they would be preparing a visit by President Bush to Brazil, “probably in November".

  CENTRAL AMERICA
  The head of the US Southern Command, General Bantz Craddock, met the heads of the armed forces of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on 22 April. The Central Americans appealed to the US to provide support for an elite force they are trying to set up to combat organised crime and drug-trafficking in the isthmus. Craddock expressed interest in the idea. Senior government officials from across Central America agreed on 3 March in Tegucigalpa to create a regional rapid-reaction force to tackle drug-trafficking and organised crime. Craddock visited Nicaragua on 26 April for talks with the head of Nicaragua's armed forces, General Omar Halleslevens. His visit comes at a testing time for the government of President Enrique Bolaños: violent protests broke out in Managua on 25 April as students and unionists called for the president to resign for mishandling a hike in public transport fares.

• 4 May 2005

  04 May 2005 Hits: 91

  TERRORISM: Noriega says US unsure of Posada Carriles's whereabouts

  CAFTA: Central American presidents to visit Washington

  IMMIGRATION: Mexico jails two US border guards

  BORDER: Agreement to tackle Mara gangs

  RICE'S VIEW: Democratically elected politicians must 'govern democratically'

  TERRORISM
  The US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega, said on 3 May that he does not know if Luis Posada Carriles is in the US. Cuba insists that the US is harbouring the 77-year old Cuban they accuse of attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro during a summit in Panama in 2001. Posada Carriles was pardoned by Panama's former president Mireya Moscoso as a last act before handing over power to the present incumbent Martí­n Torrijos on 1 September 2004. Cuba severed diplomatic ties. Noriega said that the US “has no interest in giving quarter to someone who has committed criminal acts_ We are a country that respects the rule of law." He added that “I don't even know that he is in the United States". Posada Carriles, who claims he worked for several years for the CIA, applied for asylum in the US last month. On 3 May Venezuela's Supreme Court said that it was seeking the extradition of Posada Carriles for the 1976 Cuban airliner bombing that killed 73 people. “Posada Carriles has been the author or accomplice of homicide and treason, so he must be extradited and judged by the courts of Venezuela," the Supreme Court said in a statement.

  CAFTA
  US President George Bush will meet his counterparts from Central America and the Dominican Republic in Washington on 12 May to discuss the Central American free-trade agreement (Cafta). During a visit to San Salvador on 29 April, Rice said that Bush was totally committed to Cafta. “I want you to know that President Bush has this (Cafta) right on his desk, at the top of his agenda," she said. Tony Saca, the president of El Salvador, the staunchest ally of the US in Latin America, said that he would travel to the US on 8 May to lobby congress to support Cafta.

  IMMIGRATION
  The Mexican authorities jailed two members of the US Border patrol on 3 May after they were found with cartridges reserved exclusively for the Mexican armed forces. The two Border patrol officers, named by the Mexicans as Germán Verdugo and David Allen Navarro will now have to answer charges before a Mexican judge in Mexicali, Baja California Norte. They were arrested by Mexican customs officers who stopped their Lincoln Navigator at the border crossing in Mexicali, apparently randomly. The Mexican customs officers then searched the vehicle and found 1,286 Federal cartridges and 223 Winchester cartridges.

  BORDER
  Representatives from states on both side of the US-Mexico border agreed, on 3 May, on measures to combat the Mara gangs, particularly the Mara Salvatrucha. The representatives came from all the border states (Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas on the Mexican side and California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas on the US side). The agreement will be signed by governors at a border summit in July in Ciudad Juárez. The agreement allows police forces from both side of the border to share information and undertake joint training exercises. Initially, the western US states had been sceptical about the idea of coordinating action against the Maras and were only won round during this week's meeting. A final statement on the agreement is expected to be published when the meeting ends later this afternoon (4 May).

  RICE'S VIEW
  The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, claimed on 3 May, following her visit to South America and El Salvador, that the division in Latin America was not between left and right but between democratic and non-democratic governments. In a speech at the 35th Washington conference of the Council of the Americas, she said that governments of all political colours agreed that they had to build democracies with a free market. "We all share," she said, "the consensus that democracy and economic freedom leads to success." Rice stressed that what matters is that governments are democratically elected and that these governments abide by democratic principles. In a message clearly pitched at Venezuela, Rice said: "We have to ensure that countries meet the terms of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. And more important still, we must ensure that democratically elected leaders govern democratically." Roger Noriega, the US Assistant Secretary of State, responsible for US policy to Latin America, repeated the phrase "ensuring that democratically elected governments govern democratically," in his address to the same conference.

• 11 May 2005

  11 May 2005 Hits: 88

  CAFTA: Bush administration raises the stakes

  ARGENTINA: Maritime deal

  POSADA CARRILES: New York Times recommends deportation

  REMITTANCES: US postal service launches new service

  US SENATE: New restrictions on driving licenses for migrants

  CAFTA
  The presidents of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic will meet President George Bush in Washington on 12 May to discuss the free trade agreement, DR-Cafta. There are signs that the Bush administration is raising the stakes ahead of a vote in US Congress shortly by focusing on the aspects of the deal beyond trade. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke about the political benefits that Cafta will bestow on the region. Next week Rice's deputy, Robert Zoellick is expected to speak about Cafta in terms of national security in order to pressurise congressmen into approving the agreement. Some policy advisers have suggested that Central America, with its weak democracies and faltering economies, could become a breeding ground for terrorism. The US has been saving the potential threat to national security as its trump card, leaving Cafta until now to its trade representatives. However, the US deputy assistant secretary of state of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Dan Fisk, first spelt out that Cafta was as much about security as it was about trade in June 2003. Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Fisk said that the commitment to integration and open markets had "given rise to a climate ripe for dramatic progress in reforming and reconfiguring Central American security structures and institutions." He said that Central American resources should now target "transnational criminal networks of terrorists, narcotics and arms traffickers, and alien smugglers (which) are the enemy today."

  US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez tried to take the high ground on 3 May during a Council of the Americas meeting in New York. "The opponents of Cafta are the same opponents of democracy and freedom of 20 years ago," Gutiérrez said, in reference to the left-wing opposition parties in Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) and the Frente Farabundo Martí­ para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN). The Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) argued that Gutiérrez "had it completely backwards". It argued that "The three governments to have passed DR-Cafta (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) did so after little or no public debate, much less civil society participation." It called for much more debate. "Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco's offer to delay legislative review of the agreement until an independent committee verifies that DR-Cafta will not hurt the poor is a step in the right direction," Wola said.

  ARGENTINA
  The US signed a maritime agreement with Argentina on 9 May that will allow US customs officials to carry out security checks on containers leaving the port of Buenos Aires bound for the US. Argentina is the first country in Latin America to agree to institute joint customs controls with the US. A further 36 ports worldwide have adopted similar agreements with the US. The new system will take effect in October this year. The US ambassador to Argentina, Lino Gutiérrez, said that the "container security initiative (is) a tangible way of demonstrating our confidence in Argentina's commitment to combat terrorism".

  POSADA CARRILES
  An editorial in the New York Times on 10 May opined that Luis Posada Carriles, the prime suspect in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, should not be granted political asylum in the US, which he is thought to have entered illegally six weeks ago. Posada Carriles, 77, is believed to be in hiding in the Miami area but FBI and immigration officials say they cannot confirm his whereabouts. Venezuela is seeking the extradition of Posada Carriles, who escaped from prison there while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal of his second acquittal in the airline bombing. The editorial stated, "Mr. Bush has made a point of his unwavering moral clarity on the issue of harboring terrorists. But doing the morally clear thing in this case risks retribution at the polls from a ferociously anti-Castro Cuban-American community that has helped swing Florida into the Republican column in recent elections. One way out may be to deport Mr. Posada to a European country willing to try him or to send him on to the International Criminal Court. The one thing the Bush administration cannot do is to shelter Mr. Posada by granting him political asylum. Since 9/11, the United States has become so zealous in its efforts to exclude potential terrorists from American soil that it has made it much harder for genuine refugees fleeing deadly persecution in their home countries to find sanctuary here. Washington would offend American principles and set an extremely damaging precedent by making a special exception for an admitted terrorist."

  REMITTANCES
  The US Postal Service launched a new service for Latin Americans to remit money home on 10 May. The new service is Dinero Seguro, which will allow migrant workers to send money home quickly (in less than 15 minutes) and cheaply (at an average cost of US$10 per transaction). The service will be available for the whole of May as part of the celebrations of Mothers' Day, which in most Latin American countries is 10 May.

  US SENATE
  On 10 May the US Senate unanimously approved new restrictions on driving licences for migrants. The measure, known as Real ID, was tacked on to a package of emergency aid to Iraq and Afghanistan. The measure prevents states from providing applicants with driving licences: the application now has to be made to the federal authorities. Other anti-immigrant measures tacked on to the bill include approval for a new wall along the Californian border with Mexico and further restrictions on the granting of asylum. Prominent Democrats, such as Joe Lieberman, voted in favour of the measure despite having previously criticised the chamber for refusing to allow debates or submissions on the issue. On 5 May the House of Representatives approved the Real ID bill, proposed by James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman. President George W Bush is likely to approve the Real ID bill because he has urged congress to supply the government with emergency funds for Iraq and Afghanistan on several occasions.

• 18 May 2005

  18 May 2005 Hits: 81

  HAITI: US criticises judicial system

  BRAZIL: US rejects UN plan

  CAFTA: Zoellick lambasts US opponents

  JESSE JACKSON: Summoned to help Fox

  LOS ANGELES: Chicano elected mayor

   

  HAITI
  On 13 May the US deputy ambassador to Haiti, Stuart Holliday, told the UN Security Council that the state of the Haitian judicial system was "unacceptable". The US asked the UN peacekeeping mission to discuss the possibility of an assessment of Haiti's judicial system with judicial reform experts including international judges. "We hope that other members agree that the Haitian judiciary is a problem that must be solved in conjunction with police reform, and that an assessment would be a good first step," Holliday said. He added that Haitian officials had informed council members of the difficulties, admitting "that the backlog of cases is such that most of those imprisoned and awaiting trial in Haiti have already been incarcerated for longer periods of time than if they had been tried and found guilty."

  BRAZIL
  The Brazilian government together with its allies, Germany, Japan and India, launched its proposal to reform the current set-up of the UN Security Council on 16 May. According to the four nations' plans, the number of permanent seats in the council would be expanded from the current five to include Brazil, Germany, Japan and India and two more (non-specified) African countries. The proposal also calls for the expansion of the non-permanent council from 15 to 25 countries. According to the proposal, the new permanent members would have the same rights and obligations, including veto power, as the current five members, the US, China, Russia, France and the UK. On the same day the proposal was presented, Washington signalled it would veto the reform plan unless the four proponents give up their requests for veto powers. According to the Brazilian foreign office, the Itamaraty, the US opposition to the plan does not mean a complete abandonment of the proposal, since Washington's declaration had "opened a way for negotiations".

  CAFTA
  Robert Zoellick, the US deputy Secretary of State, strongly criticised US opponents of the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the US (Cafta) on 16 May at a speech to the right wing Heritage Foundation. He said that if the deal failed to be approved, US security could be compromised. While Central Americans "are talking about freedom, democracy, and hope," the US domestic debate "has been dominated by topics such as sugar and whether CAFTA will codify international labor conventions that the United States has not even ratified itself," Zoellick said. "Our security," he said, " is connected to the development of our neighbourhood. Should we sacrifice the strategic interests of the United States and the future of Central America_for a spoonful of sugar?" Will we "leave hundreds of thousands of Central Americans in poverty and hopelessness_because of the short-sighted protectionism of U.S. labor unions? We must decide whether to promote America's strategic interests," concluded Zoellick, "or its special interests."

  JESSE JACKSON
  President Vicente Fox of Mexico invited Jesse Jackson, an Afro-American leader, to a special summit on 18 May to repair the damage caused by Fox's remarks on 13 May that Mexicans took jobs in the US that even blacks did not want. Jackson said that Fox had made a mistake and hurt people, but that he was doing his best to make up for his error. Another US Afro-American leader, Al Sharpton is due to meet President Fox either on 19 or 20 May to help to improve Fox's image with Afro-Americans. A deputy foreign minister, Patricia Olamendi Torres, has apologised for Fox's remarks, albeit only in her personal capacity.

  LOS ANGELES
  Antonio Villaraigosa, 52, won the election for mayor of Los Angeles on 17 May. He is a Mexican American and the first Hispanic to hold a mayorship in the state since 1872. Villaraigosa, who was supported by the former Democratic Party presidential candidate, John Kerry, beat the incumbent, Jim Hahn. Villaraigosa won 59% of the votes cast. In his youth he was known as Tony Rap because he never shut up. Hahn is the first Anglo mayor of LA to fail to be re-elected for 32 years. His administration was marred by allegations of corruption.

• 25 May 2005

  25 May 2005 Hits: 83

  DRUGS: Mexican gangs tighten grip on US market

  DEATH PENALTY: Prosecutor calls for execution of mara members

  DEATH PENALTY: Supreme court stands aside from Mexican row

  POSADA CARRILES: US charges terrorist with "illegal entry"

  CUBA: Pro-democracy conference

  OAS: Noreiga denies attempting to isolate Venezuela

  DRUGS
  The Central Intelligence Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration say that Mexican drug gangs have tightened their grip on the US market for cocaine in the past five years. The CIA and DEA provided the Mexican Procuradurí­a General de la República with information, which the PGR leaked on 23 May. The CIA and DEA claim that there are now 100 different Mexican gangs involved in the US cocaine trade. The main gangs, the US says, are the Ciudad Juárez gang; the Sinaloa gang; the Tijuana gang; the Gulf gang and the Milenio gang. These gangs all operate along the northern border. The US is preparing to fix a summit between its attorney general, Alberto Gonzales and the new Mexican attorney general, Daniel Cabeza de Vaca to coordinate efforts against the cocaine trade. Separately, the DEA argued that the increase in the murder rate in Tijuana, Mexico, was directly due to increased fighting between the drug gangs. In recent years, Tijuana's drug business has been controlled by the Arrellano Felix gang. The Mexican government has been successful in capturing and killing members of the Arrellano Felix family. Other gangs are now trying to take over what is left of their business, the DEA said. A report on Channel 7 in San Diego, part of NBC, claimed that the US Justice Department had received an appeal from the Mexican authorities asking for the US army to help train officials to fight the drug gangs. San Diego is just across the border from Tijuana.

  DEATH PENALTY
  Patricia Giles, the prosecutor in Virginia, asked on 23 May for the death penalty for two members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang who killed a pregnant Honduran 17 year-old, Brenda Paz. Paz, a former gang member, had gone into a US witness protection programme. Her bullet-riddled body was found in the Shenandoah River in July 2003. Giles argued that the crime was horrible and that, because Paz was a protected witness, it struck at the US justice system. The two killers have also been convicted of killing a 15 year-old in 1999.

  DEATH PENALTY
  The US supreme court said that it would step aside from the international case which argues that 51 Mexicans on death row in the US are there unconstitutionally because they did not receive timely assistance from Mexican consular officials. The supreme court said that it would let a Texas state appeals court handle the issue. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the US had violated the rights of 51 Mexicans because they did not get consular support. The Texas court is considering one of these cases, Jose Ernesto Medellí­n, who was convicted in 1994 of murdering two teenage girls.

  POSADA CARRILES
  The US charged Luis Posada Carriles with "illegal entry" into the US on 19 May. His hearing on the charge is due on 13 June. The US homeland security is considering evidence linking Posada to a string of bombings of Havana hotels in 1997 which could be grounds for refusing him asylum. Granting him asylum would open the Bush administration up to charges of hypocrisy for sheltering a know terrorist on US soil. Venezuela has threatened to break off relations with the US unless it extradites Posada to face charges of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner in October 1976, which killed 73 people. Homeland Security immediately made it clear that Posada could not be handed over to a country "acting on behalf of Cuba", a description which could be taken to fit Venezuela. The US State Department is at pains to distance itself from the Posada case. State department spokesman Richard Boucher said "The question of an extradition, the question of all the matters facing Mr. Posada Carriles, this is a legal matter. It's not a political matter. It's not a question of diplomatic relations_ Our judicial system will deal with it; our Justice Department will deal with it."

  CUBA
  The senior US diplomat in Cuba, James Cason, from the US Interests Section, attended a conference in Havana organised by Martha Beatriz Roque, a leader of the political opposition, on 20 and 21 May to discuss democratic transition in Cuba. Mason brought a videotaped message of support from President George W Bush. Bush praised Cuba's opposition for emerging from the "shadow of oppression" to attend the meeting. "We will not rest. We will keep the pressure on until the Cuban people enjoy the same freedom in Havana that they have in America," Bush said. His message could be counterproductive as it will add strength to President Fidel Castro's claim that the political opposition is in the pay of the US. Several prominent political dissidents, including Oswaldo Payá of the Movimiento Cristiano Liberación and Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo of the Cambio Cubano, refused to attend the conference on the grounds that it would give Castro an excuse to crack down further on the dissident movement. The US State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher. said "Today is Cuban Independence Day, May 20th, and to honor the occasion a group of Cubans is getting together to engage in democratic debate and discussion. We applaud the so-called group, the Assembly to Promote Civil Society's efforts to bring together some of the Cuba's independent voices. We commend all those brave members of the peaceful opposition who defy the Cuban Government and are working for a rapid and peaceful transition to democracy."

  OAS
  Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, defended a US proposal to create a committee at the Organization of American States that would monitor the quality of democracy and the exercise of power in Latin America. The proposal has been criticised in Latin America as a means of ostracising Venezuela. Noriega said he was "not surprised they are seeing this in the context of Venezuela," but "I am determined that it not be regarded as some kind of effort to isolate Venezuela." Earlier this month Noriega said that the US was concerned that although military dictatorships had vanished from the region, some countries enjoyed only the semblance of democracy. The "consolidation" of democracy means holding elections that produce a "contest of ideas and, in turn, a national consensus for addressing a country's essential problems," Noriega said. He said that it was not enough for a government to be elected democratically, it also had to govern democratically. Democracy amounts to little, Noriega added, "if it fails to produce prosperity - that is to say, equitable, sustained growth."