Washington Watch

15 March 2006

15 March 2006 Hits: 238

HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT: Brownfield responds to Venezuela's VP

CHINA & LATIN AMERICA: Craddock speaks out

IMMIGRATION: Business leader calls for more immigration

TRADE: Difficulties

VENEZUELA: Seat on UN Security Council

HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT
William Brownfield, the US ambassador to Venezuela, said on 14 March that his "good friend" José Vicente Rangel, Venezuela's vice president, was joking when he dismissed the US State Department's (critical) report on human rights in Venezuela as "toilet paper". Brownfield said that everyone knew that no government now published reports on paper, but electronically. Brownfield pointed out that the State Department had published the report (the 2006 version came out on 13 March) in the same format for the past 30 years. Brownfield said that he would be happy to discuss what the report says with the Venezuelan government, and listen to what the Venezuelans say about the human rights situation, rather than just debate why the report was published.

CHINA & LATIN AMERICA
General Bantz J Craddock told the Senate Armed Services Committee on 14 March that China was stepping up its training schemes for Latin American officers, just as the US was cutting back. Craddock is head of US Southern Command which covers most of Latin America. "The People's Republic of China has made many offers and now we are seeing those who formerly would come to the US going to China," Craddock told senators. Craddock pointed out that following the passage of the American Service members Protection Act in 2002 the US does not provide military finance and training for countries that might allow US citizens to be extradited to face the International Criminal Court. The act ended US military support for 11 Latin American countries, notably Peru, Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia. Less is known about Chinese sales of military equipment to the region. Larry Wortzel a former Pentagon intelligence officer, told the Washington Times, on 14 March, that a delegation of Second Artillery officers recently visited Cuba. The Second Artillery is China's strategic and tactical missile force. Other US analysts trying to stir up worries about China's links with Cuba claim that China has taken over Russia's US listening posts on the island at Lourdes. There is no independent evidence that the Chinese have done this.

IMMIGRATION
Larry Rubin, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico said that by 2010, when 77m US citizens would have retired, the US would need Mexican migrants. Rubin pointed out that 92% of the 12m or so illegal migrants to the US were making an economic contribution to the US economy. He said that what was needed was a mechanism to allow 20m Mexicans to work in the US.

TRADE
The US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Tom Shannon, said on 9 March that a free-trade agreement with Uruguay was off the agenda for the time being. Shannon said that any such agreement depended on US Congress ratifying FTAs with Colombia and Peru and agreements being reached with Panama and Ecuador. None of these are going very well. US Representative Sander Levin, a senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, warned on 14 March that Congress will reject the free-trade agreements with Colombia and Peru if the labour chapter is not revised. He said that he and many others in congress were not satisfied with protection of workers' rights. He said that trade issues were even more awkward now than one year ago when Congress approved the Dominican Republic-Central American free-trade agreement (DR-Cafta), which passed by just one vote. In Ecuador the Frente Unitario de Trabajadores (FUT), the biggest umbrella labour organisation, launched what it described as a 24-hour "preventive general strike" on 8 March as a "first warning" against the government signing an FTA with Washington. Luis Macas, the president of the indigenous group, Conaie, said that if President Alfredo Palacio signed the FTA "he should pack his bags".

VENEZUELA
Venezuela is stepping up its bid to be selected by Latin America and the Caribbean to replace Argentina on the UN Security Council when it leaves at the end of 2006. The Venezuelan ambassador to Chile, Víctor Delgado, publicly aired his view that Chile owed it to Venezuela to back its bid in return for Venezuela having supporting Chile's José Miguel Insulza for the position of secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 2005. Chile's president Michelle Bachelet said she wanted "consensus" within the region over which country should replace Argentina (the OAS vote proved to be very divisive). The trouble for Venezuela is that Guatemala also wants the position and the US is openly opposed to Venezuela filling it. The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, announced his opposition to Venezuela becoming a member of the Security Council in February. "I don't think there is any mistake that Venezuela would not contribute to the effective operation of the Security Council," Bolton said. Ten countries are elected for a two-year period as voting members of the council; five change each year, replaced by countries that represent different regions in the world. If a regional group fails to unite behind one, the 192-member assembly has to make the decision.

22 March 2006

22 March 2006 Hits: 233

COUNTER-TERRORISM: Strengthening regional response

RICE: Caricom visit

IMMIGRATION: Chertoff backs "virtual" wall

IMMIGRATION: Bush misspeaks over guestworkers

VENEZUELA: Concern over ties with Iran

COUNTER-TERRORISM
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, is leading a US delegation to a three-day conference in Bogotá, Colombia from March 22-24 being held by the Organization of American States (OAS) Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE). The state department said in a media statement that the goals for the conference are "to enhance the hemisphere's counterterrorism capacity, increase information-sharing mechanisms and enhance technical expertise." It also hopes that "CICTE member states will seek to approve a political declaration that strengthens the hemisphere's commitment to counterterrorism cooperation."

RICE
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended a summit held by the Caribbean Community (Caricom), in The Bahamas on 21 and 22 March. The US is seeking to repair damaged relations with Caricom over the unconventional manner in which Haiti's former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was bundled out of office in February 2004. Caricom never accepted the rule of Aristide's US-selected successor, interim prime minister Gérard Latortue, despite heavy US pressure. However, Caricom does recognise the electoral victory of Haiti's René Préval in February and both the US and Caricom "asked for this meeting looking for a way to re-engage," according to Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon. "Caricom had problems with a lot of people after Mr. Aristide left office," Shannon said. "We were one of them." Shannon said that the US was keen to convince Caricom that "we can work together in Haiti". "If our engagement with Haiti is episodic, it won't be successful, and we will continue to have spasmodic violence and political violence," he said.

IMMIGRATION
The US secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, said on 20 March that he was working to build a "virtual wall" along the border with Mexico because no-one took any notice of the real wall of steel and cement. He argued that a "virtual wall", built of sensors and other intelligence-gathering equipment would deter illegal migrants to the US. Chertoff was addressing a conference on Maritime Security organised by the rightwing Heritage Foundation. He claimed that the challenge posed by illegal immigration was similar to that posed by the Mafia 30 years ago and the Mafia, he argued, had been overcome. "The Mafia no longer casts the shadow it once did," he said. Chertoff's "virtual wall" calls for more Border Patrol agents and the construction of more roads and road barriers as well as unmanned drones and the use of satellites to track border "threats". The satellite programme is known as SpyNet.

IMMIGRATION
President George W Bush appeared confused over the debate in the US senate that could allow 12m illegal migrants in the US to regularise their status. The President said, in a press conference, on 21 March that an amnesty for illegal migrants would be a mistake. "There is a difference between someone who is here working [il]legally and someone who is a citizen," the President said, confusingly. "My response is, that person should not automatically obtain citizenship." Bush said that he was aware that the US needed manual labourers to jobs, (he cited picking onions) that no US citizen would do. He added that the current immigration system was flawed and that something needed to be done. "The best thing would be to say: if an American does not want to do a job, and can find someone, a foreigner who does want to do it, he should be allowed to do it legally for a temporary period."

VENEZUELA
The US is growing increasingly concerned over the closeness of relations between Venezuela and Iran, a country the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rica, described as "the central bank of terrorism". The Iranians recently asked the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez , to support the country's nuclear ambitions when the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to take Iran to the UN security council for contravening international nuclear regulations. Venezuela and Cuba, together with Syria, were the only countries to vote in favour of Teheran. Iran has now signed a US$400m deal with Venezuela to build popular housing in four Venezuelan regions in the next 15 months. The deal will increase the US$2bn-a-year trade between the two countries. Following the signing of the deal, Chávez declared that Iran and Venezuela are "brothers fighting against the same demon", a clear reference to the US administration. The Venezuelan ambassador in Teheran, Arturo Aníbal Gallegos, was more emphatic saying that his country has "much to learn from the Iranian people who resisted a US embargo for 27 years". Chávez is lobbying his South American counterparts for one of the region's rotating seats on the UN security council when Argentina leaves at the end of this year. The US will support Guatemala's claim to the rotating seat.

29 March 2006

29 March 2006 Hits: 112

NICARAGUA: US resumes military aid

HAITI: Préval meets Bush

BOLIVIA: Strange bombings in La Paz

PANAMA: US citizen takes Noriega to court

IMMIGRATION: Political implications for Republicans

NICARAGUA
On 27 March the US provided the Nicaraguan armed forces with more than US$1m worth of military equipment to boost its civil defence forces. The donation, from the US Southern Command, included 16 military trucks, electricity generators, medical materials, wheelchairs and other emergency equipment to help provide humanitarian assistance, especially in the event of natural disasters. The donation was made by the US ambassador, Paul Trivelli, in a ceremony presided over by the minister of defence, Avil Ramírez, and the head of the armed forces, General Omar Hallesleven. The resumption of military aid was far more significant than the scale of it: the US suspended military aid to Nicaragua last year after the opposition Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) blocked legislation to destroy the army's Sam-7 missile arsenals. In an interview given to the Nicaraguan magazine Confidencial on 27 March, Trivelli repeated his admonition to the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) that the US would never approve, or look kindly on a PLC presidential candidate imposed by former president Arnoldo Alemán, a member of his family, or one of his cronies. He described Alemán and FSLN leader Daniel Ortega as “anti-democratic". The PLC is holding a convention on 2 April to choose a presidential candidate for November's elections.

HAITI
President-elect René Préval travelled to the US to appeal for more economic assistance form the international community this week. He addressed an open debate on Haiti in the UN Security Council on 27 March and met President George W Bush briefly a day later. Préval told the Security Council that Haiti urgently needed the international community to provide long-term aid so that it could bolster state institutions and reactivate the economy. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met leaders of Caribbean states in Caricom at a summit in The Bahamas last week to try and persuade them to embrace Haiti. She said “we all have a tremendous stake in the development of a democratic Haiti that can be self-supporting." The US had serious differences with Caricom over the removal of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in February 2004. Caricom refused to recognise the interim government of Gérard Latortue and suspended Haiti from Caricom. It is reconsidering its stance in the light of Préval's victory.

BOLIVIA
An American man and Uruguayan woman have been arrested for the bombing of two hotels in La Paz that killed two people and injured others on 22 March. When the citizenship of the man was identified, President Evo Morales immediately tied the US government to the bombings saying, “There is a battle against terrorism and the government of the United States is sending Americans to do terrorism in Bolivia." The US embassy in Bolivia responded to Morales' comments on 23 March saying, “Preventing terrorist attacks is in the national interest of both countries" and “Statements like these hamper those efforts and create obstacles" while also making it clear that “any private US citizen in Bolivia is subject to the jurisdiction of the Bolivian legal system." The suspect, who calls himself Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo after changing his name from Tristan Jay Amero in 2004 when he applied a second time for a “world passport", has been deliberately trying to disconnect himself from his US citizenship and found Latin America made it easy to do so. His girlfriend from Uruguay, Alba Riveiros, claims she knew nothing about the planned attack, however reports of the couple's other attempted bombings in Bolivia and Argentina may prove otherwise. Police have still not identified a motive for the bombing, but have determined that the US citizen sees himself as a political refugee and would not have attacked on behalf of the country whose system he has put such an effort into escaping.

PANAMA
Thomas James Bleming, a Vietnam veteran, is expected to win a suit, filed in a US federal court, brought against Panama's former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega demanding US$21.5m in damages for torture. Bleming was arrested in Chiriquí in northern Panama in October 1979 for joining a guerrilla group, Frente para la Liberación Nacional de Panamá, which attempted to overthrow Panama's dictator General Omar Torrijos Herrera. He claims he was brutally tortured following orders from Noriega, then head of military intelligence, for more than 21 months, including mock executions, the threat of being thrown from an aircraft in flight, beatings, starvation, water deprivation and extended periods of solitary confinement, before being released shortly before the death of Torrijos in 1981. He is filing the suit in a Wyoming federal district court under the Torture Victims Protection Act, a US federal law. Noriega went on to become dictator in Panama and declared war on the US in 1989. He was arrested during the subsequent US invasion, Operation Just Cause, and imprisoned in Miami. Interestingly, Noriega will be eligible for parole on 9 September 2007.

IMMIGRATION
The start of the debate in the US Senate on 28 March on immigration reform, and the impetuous attacks some rightwing Republican congressmen made on the Senate's liberal draft has drawn political commentators' and pollsters' attention to the political difficulties the issue poses for the Republicans. One of President George W Bush's great electoral successes has been in attracting the Latino vote. In 2004, Bush won the support of 45% of the Latinos who voted, up seven percentage points on 2000. In 1998, Bush won half the Latino vote when he was re-elected governor of Texas. The Republicans' problem is that although there are almost 40m Latinos now living in the US a lot of them are related to, or at least know, at least one of 12m or so illegal migrants living and working in the US. Republican rightwingers in the House of Representatives voted, in December, to expel these 12m workers: the senate, more liberally, wants to put them on a track to becoming citizens.

Moderate Republicans fret that the party will lose a crucial wedge of support if it becomes too anti-immigrant. Californian Republicans suffered in the 1990s because of the then governor, Pete Wilson, and his proposals to crack down on immigration. Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said a speech to the Federalist Society in late March: "Anti-immigration rhetoric is a political siren song and Republicans must resist its lure by lashing ourselves to our party's twin masts of freedom and growth, or our majority will crash on its shoals." Bill Frist, the majority leader in the Senate, and a likely Republican contender for the presidency in 2008, has come out against the liberal draft currently being debated in the senate. He opposes a guestworker programme and the regularisation of illegal migrants living and working in the US.

5 April 2006

05 April 2006 Hits: 109

PERU: Washington keeps own counsel on Humala

NICARAGUA: US ambassador withdraws support for PLC

TRIPLE BORDER: New York prosecutor claims terror links

RICE: US still influential with democratic Left in Latin America

VENEZUELA: US seeks drugs agreement

PERU
The rise of Ollanta Humala, the nationalist candidate in Peru's presidential elections on 9 April, has prompted speculation about the formation of a “Troika Andina"- composed of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez , Bolivia's President Evo Morales and Humala - inimical to US interests in the region. Remarkably the US has kept a studied silence about Humala's climb to the top of the polls, even though several of his professed policies would openly conflict with US interests in Peru. The US ambassador to Peru, Curtis Struble, has been anonymous, in marked contrast to the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli (see next story). The US is probably adopting a “wait and see approach"; Humala's electoral manifesto contains numerous incompatible policies that he will not be able to implement and, of course, he might not win. Humala says he is not anti-American but he has made no secret of his admiration for Chávez and is a fierce critic of US-backed neoliberal economic policies in Peru. Like Morales, he rejects US drug policy. He wants an end to coca eradication and he wants to expel the Drug Enforcement Administration from Peru. He says you cannot solve the cocaine problem by striking the poor coca grower. He is in favour of alternative crops, which he says can be profitable even though every attempt to cultivate alternative crops has been a failure because nothing is as profitable as coca. He is against the free-trade agreement negotiated by the Toledo administration with the US but it is not clear whether he would be against any FTA. He is openly hostile to foreign investment, especially in areas he considers to be Peru's “strategic interests"; he refers to transnational (mining) companies that exploit Peru's natural resources without being prepared to renegotiate their contracts, with the neat oxymoron “the Talibans of neoliberalism".

NICARAGUA
The US ambassador, Paul Trivelli, reacted to the (s)election of José Rizo as the presidential candidate of the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista for November's elections by claiming that the US would withhold support for the party. Trivelli said he had nothing against Rizo personally - he said he was sure that Rizo was “an honourable man" - but he condemned what he described as the nefarious influence of former president and PLC strongman Arnoldo Alemán within the PLC. Trivelli said that Alemán, imprisoned for 20 years for corruption but still politically active under house arrest, had handpicked his man. He said that the party would never be democratic until it sidelined Alemán whose greatest achievement, he claimed, was allowing the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) to consolidate itself as the biggest party in Nicaraguan politics. On 4 April Trivelli said that a federal court in Florida would begin hearings on 17 April into a case accusing Alemán and five family members of allegedly sending more than US$700,000 to US bank accounts while Alemán was in power (1996-2001). US authorities froze the bank accounts three years ago.

TRIPLE BORDER
New York public prosecutor, Robert Morgenthau, told reporters that investigations revealed that US$3bn coming from the Triple Border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay passed through US banks to suspected bank accounts in the Middle East. The money is believed to have financed Arab terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. The money, according to Morgenthau, was obtained through illicit activities in the border area, such as contraband, drugs and weapons trafficking. He said that from the Triple Border the resources went to a ghost company in Montevideo and then on to US banks, which he refused to name. The money was then sent to suspected accounts in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Palestine. Investigations started in 2003 after US authorities closed down Beacon Hill Service Corporation, accused of being one of the country's biggest money-launderers. Some US$9bn passed through the company, which was also used by Brazilian foreign currency dealers. The company was subjected to investigations by Brazil's congress following the Banestado financial scandal. The US government has long insisted that the Triple Border is one of the sources of financing for Arab terrorists but has never been able to supply firm evidence. The Brazilian government continues to deny it.

RICE
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, told congress that the US had not lost its influence in Latin America because of the rise of the left in the region. According to her, the George W Bush administration has "no problems" with leftwing Latin American governments "as long as they govern democratically and wish to improve the lives of their peoples". Rice mentioned that the US had "very good" relations with Brazil and "excellent" relations with Chile to make her point to congressmen.

VENEZUELA
The US and Venezuela are trying to forge a lasting agreement to help combat the problem of drugs in the region. The two countries are discussing an agreement which will see them cooperating in the so-called war on drugs. It is hoped that the agreement will also strengthen bilateral relations between the US and Venezuela, the Venezuelan deputy minister of foreign affairs for North America, María del Pilar Hernández, said. On 4 April she met with her North American counterpart Tom Shannon in Washington to try to hammer out a deal. She admitted that it had been a positive meeting, but that there still remained some issues on which it would be difficult to agree. The agreement will be in the interests of both countries, she added, but she would not commit to dates or deadlines for completion. This is the first time two high-ranking officials from the countries have met after diplomatic relations soured last year. The US Drug Enforcement Administration withdrew from Caracas amid accusations of spying against some of its officials, and allegations that drugs were being planted as a way of entrapment. Venezuela has also recently signed a new anti-drugs agreement with Guyana. It focuses on stopping narco-traffickers using their common borders to transport drugs around the region. Guyana has said that it will look to Venezuela to put to use its experience in the war on drugs.

12 April 2006

12 April 2006 Hits: 80

IMMIGRATION: Republicans hardliners confused by mega-demonstrations

PERU: Toledo heads to US to sign FTA

CARIBBEAN: Military exercise hosted

VENEZUELA: US warns that egg-throwing incident breaches Vienna Convention

HONDURAS: Military official guilty of torture

IMMIGRATION
Huge, peaceful demonstrations in about 100 US cities on 9 and 10 April, coupled with a one-day strike by Hispanic workers on Monday 10 April have given hardline Republicans pause for thought over their determination to criminalise illegal migrants in the US. The organisers of the protests against the hardline reform proposed by James Sensenbrenner (Rep, Wisconsin), and approved by the House of Representatives in December, appear to have learnt from criticism of their earlier mega-demonstrations. This time more of the demonstrators' placards were in English and the demonstrators portrayed themselves as proto-US citizens. Although some demonstrators chanted Si se puede, at the biggest march on 10 April in Washington DC, that may have drawn over 750,000 people, more recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Another 100,000 Latinos demonstrated in Phoenix, Arizona, also on 10 April. On 9 April at least 350,000 mostly Latinos had demonstrated in Dallas, Texas. The show of Latino force was timely because the Senate failed to vote through a more liberal immigration reform on 7 April, before it broke for the Easter recess. This reform would have allowed 7.5m of the 12m illegal migrants living in the US access to citizenship. Following the demos, Republicans in both Houses of Congress are beginning to backtrack. On 11 April, Bill Frist, (R, Tennessee) the majority leader in the senate, and Dennis Hastert (R, Illinois) in the House agreed that illegal immigration should not be classed as a serious crime. They did not say, however, whether it should be classed as just a misdemeanour, which is punishable only with a fine. The Sensenbrenner bill classifies illegal immigration as a felony. An opinion poll on 11 April, for the Washington Post and ABC, found that only 20% of respondents supported the idea of treating illegal immigration as a serious crime. A thumping 60% supported the liberal senate proposal that would allow most illegal immigrants to apply for US citizenship.

PERU
President Alejandro Toledo is in Washington today (12 April) to sign a free-trade agreement with the US. Toledo said that the FTA would consolidate Peru's expansive foreign trade agenda; Toledo has pushed through FTAs with China, Thailand and Singapore. Toledo has come under fire for the timing of his visit to the US to sign the FTA, which will then need to be ratified by the legislative bodies in both countries. The FTA is a contentious issue in the current election campaign. Ollanta Humala, the nationalist candidate who won most votes on 9 April is opposed to the FTA as it stands. He had claimed to be opposed to any FTA per se but now he is talking about needing to revise it. Humala is more in favour of strengthening regional trade ties. The economic coordinator for Humala's Unión por el Perú party, Félix Jiménez, said he wants a referendum to be held on the FTA. He argues that Toledo has no mandate to be making such a decision given that the president's Perú Posible party, which won 45 seats in 2001, did not win a single seat in the 9 April legislative elections. Alan García, the man Humala is likely to face in a run-off at the end of May or in early June, is in favour of the FTA in principle but he also advocates revising it. He cannot afford to back it unquestioningly as he risks losing support from agricultural producers (among whom support for him is strong) and trade unions. Toledo wants to push the FTA through congress before the end of his term on 28 July.

CARIBBEAN
In a military exercise which has been designed to "strengthen ties" between the US navy and the Caribbean, a deployment of more than 6,500 US sailors left Hampton Roads naval base, the largest in the world, on 11 April. The exercise is due to last for two months and includes the use of a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, a destroyer, a missile carrier and the possibility of two nuclear submarines. The manoeuvres are part of a "Partnership of the Americas" scheme, and have gone ahead with the compliance of all countries in the region except Cuba and Venezuela. The Washington brief to sailors includes preparing to "fight the global war on terrorism", which translates as the prevention of narcotraffickers operating in the region. Local Caribbean analysts are sceptical of the exercise and deployment of troops, seeing it as the US flexing its muscles. They believe the reconnaissance flights and terrain analyses which are part of the exercise are the perfect opportunity for the US navy to familiarise itself with the area should an attack be pending.

VENEZUELA
On 11 April Washington warned Venezuela that a repeat of the incident which saw US ambassador William Brownfield's car pelted with eggs, tomatoes and onions would mean severe measures being taken. A spokesperson said that the attack breached the laws for diplomatic protection set out in the Vienna Convention. The incident occurred when Brownfield was distributing free baseball equipment in a working class Caracas neighbourhood. The foreign ministry said it guarantees protection for diplomats, but claimed Brownfield has not complied with his obligation to inform the ministry of his visits around Venezuela since last February, which makes it hard to assure his safety. Vice-president José Vicente Rangel said the US ambassador was "looking for someone to hit him over the head with a rock".

HONDURAS
An ex-Honduran army official has been found guilty in the US of torture and other crimes. Former head of the National Investigations Directorate Colonel Juan López Grijalba has been ordered to pay a total of 47 million dollars to relatives of his victims after undergoing a civil trial in a federal court in Miami, where he arrived 1998. In 2004 he was deported back to his homeland amid accusations of the abduction and murder of two students, and for torturing a couple. Grijalba chose not to testify, which is a constitutional right in the US, as a means of not incriminating himself. The judge and the prosecution called on Honduran authorities to take heed of the federal ruling and bring criminal charges against the Colonel in Honduras. The court's ruling "is a powerful condemnation of Colonel López Grijalba's barbaric behaviour and complete disregard for the lives of Honduran citizens", said one lawyer.

19 April 2006

19 April 2006 Hits: 63

NICARAGUA: Trivelli tries to unite Right against Sandinistas

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Military manoeuvres

IMMIGRATION: Georgia tightens up on migrants

CHILE: Foxley travels to Washington

ECUADOR: FTA hitch

NICARAGUA
The US ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli, continued his highly publicised involvement in Nicaragua's domestic political affairs on 17 April by meeting representatives of the political Right in an effort to reunite the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) to challenge the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) in presidential elections on 5 November. “The obstacle to unification in this country, a big obstacle for democracy in this country is (former president and PLC strongman) Arnoldo Alemán," Trivelli said after meeting Eduardo Montealegre, a PLC dissident and current frontrunner, who is standing for the Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN) in the elections. Montealegre did not explicitly rule out an alliance; he said he would not be part of any alliance with the PLC controlled by Alemán. The PLC argues that it has already nominated its presidential candidate - José Rizo - on 2 April. Trivelli denounced the nomination, saying that Rizo had been handpicked by Alemán.

Trivelli admitted that his was a difficult task as there was “little common ground" between the representatives of the parties he had spoken to. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said “_the PLC must distance itself from the leadership of convicted criminal Arnoldo Alemán and participate in open primaries to select leadership. The United States continues to believe that democracy and leaders committed to democratic governance form the only path to a peaceful and prosperous future for Nicaragua. Former President Alemán stole millions from the Nicaraguan people. We have been pleased to see strong grassroots opposition to Alemán and his corrupt politics and we urge the Nicaraguan people to continue to reject discredited figures of the country's political past as represented by Alemán and former dictator Daniel Ortega."

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The US and Dominican Navy are carrying out joint military exercises this week consisting of maritime security and harmonising efforts to combat drug-trafficking and people trafficking in the Caribbean. US destroyer USS Stout entered Dominican waters on 18 April. It was received by vice-admiral César de Windt Ruiz and US ambassador Hans Hertell in the port of Caucedo, east of the capital Santo Domingo. The ship will leave with 36 Dominican naval officers for two days of training. The US aircraft carrier, George Washington, is currently in the Caribbean carrying out a "Partnership of the Americas" military exercise that will run until the end of May. The ship will visit Honduras, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Curação, Aruba and St Kitts. More than 6,500 US sailors are participating in the exercises.

IMMIGRATION
Sunny Perdue, the Republican governor of the state of Georgia, approved a law on 17 April to penalise illegal migrants. The new law, which will come into effect on 1 July 2007 introduces fines for employers who hire undocumented (ie illegal) migrants. All companies doing business with the state government will have to submit to an audit of their employees to ensure that the company is complying with the new rules, which are among the toughest in the US. The new law has the support of Melvin Everson, a Republican and the first black elected to the state congress (in 2005), and still one of only two blacks in the state congress. Under the new law, the Georgia state police will also have to check on the immigration status of anyone they arrest. Georgian legislators say that Colorado and South Carolina are interested in copying what Georgia has introduced. The Georgia law allows all migrants, regardless of their immigration status access to emergency medical treatment and access to primary education. Both these rights have been upheld by federal courts. Georgia will also allow all migrants access to prenatal care and treatment for contagious diseases.

CHILE
The Chilean foreign minister, Alejandro Foxley, is to visit Washington today (19 April) to meet the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Robert Zoellick. Foxley is due to talk to them about the progress of the free trade agreement between Chile and the US as well as the reform of the UN and the Doha Round of the World Trade Organisation. While he is in Washington, Foxley, a well-respected economist, will meet members of the World Bank board to discuss ways to accelerate growth in developing countries, reduce poverty and improve quality of life. This is the first of two visits to the US; in June he will return with President Michelle Bachelet to meet President George W. Bush.

ECUADOR
Ecuadorean foreign minister Francisco Carrión rejected rumours on 18 April that discussions with the US on a free-trade agreement have completely ended. Negotiations came to an impasse in early April when the Ecuadorean congress passed a bill increasing the tax take on foreign oil companies' windfall profits. The move prompted the oil companies to threaten to sue and the US negotiators of the FTA appeared to cool over the prospect of a deal. Ecuador's main negotiator, Manuel Chiriboga said "We want to point out that the bill is one thing and the free trade negotiations are something else." He plans to make a formal request to resume discussions for 15 May and for no more than eight days. Ecuador began negotiations for an FTA with the US in May 2004, but has yet to finalise a deal, unlike neighbours Colombia and Peru.

26 April 2006

26 April 2006 Hits: 66

VENEZUELA: Shannon visit denied

CARIBBEAN: Military exercises

NICARAGUA: Stepping up pressure on the Liberals

CUBA: Posada Carriles bid for citizenship considered

DRUGS: Patterson warns Morales

VENEZUELA
The US State Department denied on 24 April that US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon was planning to visit Caracas in the near future to meet Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez . The deputy spokesman for the State Department, Adam Ereli, said that there had been no contact whatsoever with Venezuela, adding that "There are no plans for a trip at this point with Assistant Secretary Shannon to Venezuela. Our dealings with Venezuela and our contacts with Venezuela are mostly through our embassy. There was a Venezuelan official here a couple of weeks ago, who met with Assistant Secretary Shannon and other State Department officials, but there's been no recent contact between the government." Ereli's comments follow a comment by Chávez , that Shannon had asked Alí Rodríguez, the foreign minister, if he could visit Caracas. On 21 April the US's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) averted a diplomatic crisis between the US and Venezuela by upgrading the safety rating of Venezuela's airlines to category 1. Chávez had twice threatened to suspend US airline services to Venezuela unless Venezuela's rating was upgraded from category 2 to category 1. Category 2 severely limits the services that national carriers can offer in the US.

CARIBBEAN
The US ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, was temporarily a guest aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is engaged in US military exercises in the Caribbean, involving more than 6,500 US sailors. While Cuba's President Fidel Castro dismissed the two month-long US military exercises - "those little boats going around out there don't scare anybody" - his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez called the US exercises "a threat against us - not just against Venezuela but also against Cuba". Venezuelan Admiral Orlando Maniglia announced that Venezuela would soon hold military exercises along its coasts in concert with the armed forces of (unspecified) neighbouring countries.

NICARAGUA
On 25 April the US cancelled the visa of Donald Lacayo, a close friend of convicted former president Arnoldo Alemán, for alleged corruption. Lacayo is a deputy for the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, which still recognises the leadership of Alemán, but the US has withdrawn its support for the party, a traditional ally in its efforts to keep the Frente Sandanista de Liberación Nacional out of power, because of its continued links to Alemán. US ambassador Paul Trivelli is endeavouring to persuade all of the political Right, including several PLC splinter groups, to come together to contest the elections.

CUBA
Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban exile militant who has been in custody in the US since May 2005, will be interviewed by immigration authorities today (26 April) with respect to his appeal to be granted US citizenship. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on 22 March that it would not free Posada Carriles, who is wanted by both Cuba and Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner and a string of hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 and 1998, but "review Mr. Posada's custody in light of any additional information that he may submit, collateral developments, and efforts to remove him to other countries." The US has ruled out extraditing Posada Carriles to Cuba or Venezuela, but not necessarily a third country. Posada Carriles claims that he is entitled to US citizenship because he fought in Vietnam and served in the CIA in the 1970s. It is a very awkward case for immigration officials, however, as the US will be accused of naturalising a known terrorist if it approves Posada Carriles's appeal.

DRUGS
Anne Patterson, the US undersecretary at the State Department for international drug trafficking affairs, issued President Evo Morales of Bolivia with a warning on 25 April. She said that unless Bolivia stepped up its coca-eradication efforts, both coca and cocaine production would "explode" in Bolivia. In 2005 Bolivia eradicated 6,000 hectares of coca plantations. So far this year, Morales's government has eradicated just 743 hectares. Patterson said that her hour-long meeting with Morales had been "very positive". She pointed out that despite the eradication achieved in 2005, Bolivia's coca acreage had actually increased. Felipe Cáceres, the coca grower who now heads the government's anti-drugs effort as deputy minister for Defensa Social, argued that Patterson was being overdramatic: he said that the increase in coca acreage in 2005 was just 3% which was "insignificant." It is not clear what figures Patterson is using to base her arguments. She said that Bolivia had 30,000 hectares of coca in 2005; yet the State Department's own figures put the acreage at 26,500 hectares. Patterson claimed that the legal coca acreage was just 7,000ha, so 23,000ha of coca was going to the illegal drug trade. Bolivia's official figures show 27,000ha of coca of which 30% (8,100ha) are cultivated illegally. Cáceres argued that the government's coca sí, cocaína no policy was working. He pointed out that in the first quarter the government seized 4t of cocaine. This was more than was seized in the whole of 2005. Cáceres added that half the cocaine seized came from Peru.

3 May 2006

03 May 2006 Hits: 77

CUBA: One of six on terrorism blacklist

HAITI: Problems with Préval?

BOLIVIA: Waiting on details of decree nationalising gas

MEXICO: Concern over drug legalisation

US: "Day without immigrants" brings one million onto streets

CUBA
The US state Department included Cuba as one of six terrorist nations in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism, released on 28 April. Cuba keeps company with North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan. The State Department also brought up old allegations that Cuba could be carrying out a biological weapons programme. As before, it provided no evidence. Cuban President Fidel Castro responded with his customary diatribes against the US. "The Department of State has in a cynical and shameless fashion accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez of friendliness toward terrorism and Cuba of being a terrorist country," Castro said during his lengthy May Day speech. He accused the US of double standards for harbouring "known terrorists", such as the anti-Castro activist and former CIA agent, Luis Posada Carriles, who is being held in custody in Texas for illegal entry into the US. Cuba and Venezuela want him extradited for organising terrorist attacks in Cuba and bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976. The US has ruled out this option.

HAITI
The US State Department congratulated Haiti for holding "successful parliamentary elections" on 21 April. "With the vote completed, the United States looks forward to the sitting of a new Parliament and the inauguration of President-elect René Préval on 14 May. The Haitian people have clearly demonstrated their commitment to democracy through their elections," State Department spokesman Scott McCormack said. There are, however, already two issues that could complicate future US relations with Haiti: former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's determination to return to Haiti; and Préval's decision to seek closer ties with Venezuela by visiting Caracas to sign up to President Hugo Chávez 's Petrocaribe oil initiative, under which Venezuela provides cheap oil to Caricom nations.

BOLIVIA
The US State Department gave a guarded response to the decision by Bolivia's President Evo Morales to issue a decree nationalising the gas industry. State Department spokesman Scott McCormack said "We've seen the reports about Bolivia and the decree that was issued. Now, we're still looking at the specifics, the details of the decree, and exactly what steps the Bolivian government intends to take in the follow-up to that decree_ I could say now, however, that certainly we will watch very closely any potential impacts on the atmosphere for private sector investment in Bolivia and in terms of the Bolivian government's adherence to its contractual obligations as well." Asked about the decision of Morales to send the army to the 56 gas fields and refineries in Bolivia, ostensibly to ensure that production and distribution continued as normal, he said, "I'm not sure what practical effect actually deploying troops might have." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he was "not aware of any official change from privatisation to nationalisation".

MEXICO
Mexican President Vicente Fox is expected to sign into law today (3 May) a radical drug bill approved by Mexico's congress last week which will make Mexico one of the most permissive countries in the world in terms of personal drug consumption. The bill legalises cocaine, heroin, LSD, marijuana, PCP, opium, synthetic opiates, mescaline, peyote (the hallucinogenic cactus), psilocybin mushrooms, amphetamines and methamphetamines for small amounts of personal use. The Bush administration has refrained from openly criticising Mexico's drug policy, which clashes so starkly with its own. "Any country that embarks on policies that encourage drug use will get more drug use and more drug addiction," Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said. "Many countries, including the US and Mexico, see the drug problem as a trafficking problem. But the real problem isn't trafficking, it's drug use. The costs of drug addiction are staggering," he said. It will still be a crime to sell drugs or use them in public in Mexico but the worst punishment will be fines. The government hopes it will enable police to devote more time to intercepting large drug shipments and major traffickers.

US
On 1 May around one million protesters took part in the so-called "day without immigrants" demonstration in cities across the US to demand a reform to the country's immigration laws. The demonstration, one of the largest mass protests since the Civil Rights era, and the first on a working day since 1947, succeeded in closing down meat-packing plants, restaurants, vineyards and hotels. The agricultural sector was among the worst affected, with many owners reporting a high level of absenteeism. Nevertheless, the economic impact was not as significant as some had feared and some of the organisers were disappointed with the turn-out. The protest comes as the Congress considers reforming the country's immigration laws, and public opinion appears to be swinging against the initial hardline proposal promulgated by Republican congressman James Sensenbrenner. The Sensenbrenner bill classifies illegal immigration as a felony. A Rasmussen poll released last week showed that 26% of Americans hold a favourable opinion of the protests, while 56% do not. However a poll in mid April by ABC and The Washington Post found that only 20% of respondents supported the idea of treating illegal immigration as a serious crime; 60% backed the more liberal senate proposal that would allow most illegal immigrants to apply for US citizenship. The government estimates there are between 11-12 million illegal immigrants in the US.

10 May 2006

10 May 2006 Hits: 69

CUBA: Havana wins seat on UN Human Rights Council

PERU: Humala's visa cancelled

BOLIVIA: US stays quiet on gas nationalisation

MEXICO: Washington welcomes backtrack on drugs legalisation

IMMIGRANTS: Minutemen Project rallies support

CUBA
Cuba won a seat on the newly-formed UN Human Rights Council, which takes over from the Human Rights Commission, on 9 May. The Council, which has 47 other members including Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay (but not Venezuela) from Latin America was immediately criticised by the US. The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said “What a joy. That simply says that the deficiencies from the previous commission may well now still be carried over." Bolton said that the US, which did not put a candidate forward, would work with member states in order to make the council “as strong and effective as it can be". US Senator, Norm Coleman, was even more critical, saying that the council was doomed to failure from the start. Saudi Arabia, China and Russia also won seats on the new Council.

PERU
The US embassy in Peru has dismissed criticism from the nationalist presidential candidate, Ollanta Humala, that it is intervening in the electoral campaign by revoking his visa. Humala said he had planned to visit the US next week to meet representatives of financial organisations and human rights groups in Washington and New York but he was prevented from doing so because the US had cancelled his visa. He said this served as proof that the US was backing his rival, former president Alan García. The US embassy said that Ambassador James Curtis Struble had contacted Humala's campaign team to assist in his application for a new visa. Humala's criticism was misleading. He gave the impression that the US had just cancelled his visa in the middle of the electoral race; it was in fact cancelled in January 2005 after Humala's brother Antauro staged a bloody (failed) rebellion against the government of President Alejandro Toledo in the southern town of Andahuaylas.

BOLIVIA
The US has stayed remarkably silent over President Evo Morales's decree nationalising the gas industry on 1 May. On 4 May State Department spokesman Sean McCormack noted, “I don't think that, at this point, we have seen any steps on the part of the Bolivian Government that have actually affected the contractual obligations. There is certainly the declaration of intent there, which is something that we want to understand better, and I think that that is the motivation of Bolivia's neighbours in the region as well. It's something we're going to keep an eye on and watch." Asked about the rapport between Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez and Morales, and whether it was a threat to US influence in the region, he said “I know that President Morales and Mr. Chávez have talked in the past; I'd expect that they talk in the future".

MEXICO
The US responded positively to the decision by Mexico's President Vicente Fox to amend a controversial law decriminalising drugs for personal use and send it back to congress. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that the Fox had introduced amendments to the legislation so that “there is no doubt that the possession and consumption of drugs are and will continue to be crimes." McCormack added “We, of course, shared our views prior to this announcement with the Mexican Government on the matter." John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), reserved praise last week for Mexico's efforts at eradicating opium poppy and marijuana in 2005. Mexico eradicated about 21,600 hectares of opium poppy and 30,840ha of marijuana in 2005, in both cases surpassing the amounts eradicated in 2004. “It is exceedingly difficult to find and eradicate these illegal crops. Mexico has consistently assigned thousands of its military and law-enforcement personnel to this difficult and dangerous task. At times during the year, there have been as many as 35,000 troops in the field eradicating marijuana and opium," Walters said.

IMMIGRATION
Members of the anti-immigrant group, the Minutemen Project, which monitors and apprehends suspected illegal immigrants on the US-Mexico border, rallied in Atlanta on 10 May to pick up support for their demand that congress enforce stricter immigration laws. Atlanta was the 10th city visited by the Minutemen. They began their trek in Los Angeles on May 3 and plan rallies in North Carolina and Virginia before arriving in Washington D.C. on 12 May. The Minutemen organisers said their trip is in response to marches staged on 1 May around the nation by more than one million people demanding amnesty for illegal immigrants

17 May 2006

17 May 2006 Hits: 64

IMMIGRATION: White House begins push over reform

PERU: García backs Humala over US visa

VENEZUELA: Threatens US over arms embargo

BOLIVIA: García Linera to visit Washington

BOLIVIA: Morales complains about US

IMMIGRATION
The White House has followed up President George W Bush's first ever national broadcast on immigration reform on 15 May with a concerted effort to win over rightwingers. The most eye-catching move was to put vice president Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh's syndicated radio programme to mollify conservatives. Limbaugh had been critical of President Bush's offer, in the 15 May broadcast, of an (effective) amnesty for illegal migrants working in the US. Conservatives said that the deployment of 6,000 national guardsmen along the Mexican border, which annoys Mexican politicians who claim that the US has militarised the border, is window dressing for the controversial amnesty. Tom Tancredo, a Republican congressman from Colorado, who wants to curb illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America, said that the House of Representatives would not accept Bush's amnesty.

Other conservatives claim that the amnesty will not go down well with the electorate: the Republicans are facing tricky mid-term elections in November. The US Senate is currently considering a liberal immigration reform scheme that would allow at least 7.5m illegal immigrants to become US citizens. The Senate said that it will negotiate with the (right-wing dominated) House of Representatives over a comprehensive immigration reform. The Senate wants to make it easier for US companies to offer work visas to temporary migrants. On 16 May, liberal senators defeated an effort by hardliners to tighten up the reform. The hardliners, led by Senator Johnny Isakson (R, Georgia), wanted to halt the issuance of new work visas until the Department of Homeland Security had ruled that the Mexican border was now secure. In his broadcast on 15 May, President Bush admitted that the US has lost control of the border. Senator Isakson's amendment was defeated by 55 votes to 40.

There were two other straws showing the ways the winds are blowing in the Senate. The first was the crushing approval (by 79 votes to 16) of a proposal by Ken Salazar, (D, Colorado) that the president certify that the guestworker plan and other immigration reforms were in the interests of national security. The second was the approval of a proposal from John Kerry (D, Massachusetts) to increase the number of Border patrol agents by a further 1,000 this fiscal year. The number will thus rise by 3,000 over the full year.

PERU
Alan García criticised the US for cancelling the visa of Ollanta Humala, his opponent in the second round of the presidential elections on 4 June, and urged the US embassy to provide him with a new visa. García supported Humala to dodge his rival's claim that the US government was intervening on his behalf by denying him a visa to travel to the US. Humala only 'discovered' last week that his visa had been revoked by the embassy back in early 2005, when he was suspected of involvement in his brother's bloody Andahuaylas uprising. The US ambassador, James Curtis Struble, said he would do everything he could to facilitate matters for Humala should he wish to travel to the US.

VENEZUELA
Reacting to the US decision to ban weapon sales to Venezuela, Defence Minister Orlando Maniglia has hinted that his country might be prepared to sell some of their F-16 fighter planes to Iran. The move follows comments made by President Chávez last November when he suggested that, confronted with the "negativity" of the US, they might "send ten planes to Cuba or China so they can see how the technology works". The US has protested that, as set out in the original contract, the sale of F-16 aeroplanes or other defence equipment to third parties is not allowed without permission from Washington. However, Chávez sees this contract as void due to the fact that the US has failed to keep its side of the deal in providing support and spare parts over the last three years. According to US officials the embargo has been put in place as Venezuela is "not cooperating fully in counter terrorism" and has friendships with "state sponsors of terror". Maniglia has however been quick to point out that the equipment they are banning is designed precisely for the fight against terrorism such as at its borders with Colombia

BOLIVIA
Bolivia's vice-president Alvaro García Linera will visit Washington in June. The ostensible reason for the visit is soya. Bolivia claims that the putative free trade deal between the US and Colombia would jeopardise Bolivia's soya exports to Colombia. Bolivia exports some 500,000 tonnes of soya to Colombia annually, worth about US$170m. The US, along with Brazil, is the world's biggest soya producer. García Linera is also expected to broach the extension of the US Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (Atpdea) which rewards Andean countries that comply with US drug policy. This will require García Linera, who adopts a more measured and moderate tone on foreign policy than President Evo Morales, to provide details on the progress of coca eradication in Bolivia. He is also likely to be quizzed about Bolivia's recent nationalisation of the gas industry.

BOLIVIA
In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Bolivian President Evo Morales has complained that certain multinationals and the US embassy in La Paz are trying to provoke social and economic problems in order to try and stall his government's reforms. Morales complained that Washington has denied visas to many Bolivian senators and he described their relations as tense. "We are in communication," he said, "but with their actions they behave badly". Morales is also unhappy with the US position regarding the extradition of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. The ex-president fled to the US days after he resigned from his post in 2003. He is wanted on charges of genocide for the murder of 60 people during a wave of protests between September and October 2003. According to the Bolivian deputy foreign minister Mauricio Dorfler, a request for his extradition was given to the US eleven months ago. The Bolivian delegation that recently travelled to Washington was told that the State Department's legal team was analysing the case. Dorfler went on to say that the case highlighted another example in which Bolivia was not receiving necessary cooperation.

24 May 2006

24 May 2006 Hits: 71

REGION: OAS reform

PERU: FTA to go to congress

IMMIGRATION: Almost half of illegals in US arrive on visas

BOLIVIA: US doubts about voluntary eradication

CUBA: Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba

REGION
The Inter-American Dialogue, a US thinktank on Western Hemisphere affairs, has just released a report on the Organization of American States (OAS). While the report falls some way short of former US President Lyndon Johnson's assessment that the OAS "couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel", it does call for the OAS to become "more active and engaged". The task force compiling the report, made up of such luminaries as Chile's former president Ricardo Lagos, Brazil's Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Bolivia's Jorge Quiroga, defends the organisation on the grounds that "no group or coalition_ can act with the unique legitimacy and broad mandate of the OAS". However, the task force seems to imply that the OAS is weakened by its adherence to its guiding principles of national sovereignty and non-intervention, a legacy of Latin American fear of US interference in their domestic affairs.

It concedes that the effectiveness of the OAS is dependent on, and therefore constrained by, the willingness of its member states to reach a consensus: decisions rely on a consensus between 35 member states each represented by an ambassador with a single vote. Given the fractious relations between several members, the task force's conclusion that the OAS should be playing a far more influential role in hemispheric affairs, with the corollary that "it will need greater unity and cooperation among its member states" looks little more than a pipe dream. The report attaches perhaps undue importance to the role of the secretary general of the OAS (a position currently filled by Chile's José Miguel Insulza) in steering the agenda and seeking consensus. It says that the OAS is "critically dependent on the consistent, vigorous and sometimes risk-taking leadership of the secretary general". The report also calls for member states to raise their annual payments to the OAS to enable it to become more engaged in strengthening democratic institutions, responding to threats to democracy and monitoring elections (where it has met with success).

Click here for the full report, which includes interesting case studies on recent OAS initiatives in Haiti, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

PERU
President Alejandro Toledo revealed that the executive would send to congress the free-trade agreement with the US for ratification on 5 June, the day after the second round of the presidential elections. Toledo's mandate ends on 28 July and he is keen to push the FTA through congress before then. The nationalist presidential candidate, Ollanta Humala, is opposed to the FTA; his opponent Alan García has said little on the subject but appears to favour its revision. Neither candidate feels that the present congress has the credibility to ratify such an important agreement: in the recent legislative elections, the ruling coalition, Perú Posible-Frente Independiente Moralizador, lost nearly all of its seats. If the present congress fails to ratify the FTA, the future congress is very unlikely to do so. Humala's Unión por el Perú will hold more than a third of the 120 seats.

IMMIGRATION
The Pew Hispanic Center published a report of 23 May which claimed that 45% of the illegal immigrants living and working in the US originally entered the country legally. They simply stayed on when their visas expired. This finding will be seized on by those hostile to a liberal reform of US immigration rules. The liberals, and President George W Bush, want to increase the number of legal migrants to the US by offering more work visas. These are for three years and renewable. The assumption is that the people getting these visas will go home when the visas expire. It may be that the US will have to offer financial incentives, as Thailand does, to encourage guestworkers to leave when their visas expire. Pew reckons that between 4.5m and 6m people enter the US legally each year but do not return home. It also reckons that between 6m and 7m people cross the border into the US illegally every year. As Pew reckons that there are only between 11.5m and 12m illegal immigrants in the US, many of the illegal migrants must be leaving the US each year. It is possible, on the Pew figures, that people who entered the US legally, leave illegally, and then return illegally to resume their jobs in the US.

BOLIVIA
The US ambassador to Bolivia, David Greenlee, said on 23 May that his government doubted that voluntary eradication of coca plants would be effective. He said that he did not know if coca growers would switch from coca to other crops once coca production had reached a specified level. Under the government's plan, officially launched on 20 May, each family in Caranavi in the Yungas will be allowed one cato (1,600 square metres) of coca. Yungas is the only official coca growing area in the country. In Chapare, where President Evo Morales comes from, each family is also allowed a cato of coca allowed under deals with successive governments, even though all coca production in the Chapare is theoretically illegal. President Morales is trying to develop a coca si cocaine no policy. This is very different from previous governments' zero coca policies which were supported by the US. Greenlee said that he would like to see permanent observation of the coca control scheme in Caranavi. What concerns the US, Greenlee said, is where the surplus coca was sold. The government scheme has tried to address this problem by setting up an official coca market in Caranavi. Official estimates suggest that there are at least 5,000 hectares of illegal coca plantations in the Yungas alone.

CUBA
A new report from The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba has been delayed, according to the US Department of State. A State Department spokesman did not give details about the cause of the delay stating only that more time was needed to work on the report. He also said that the delay was not due to any particular dispute within the Commission. The State Department's Transition Coordinator, Caleb McCarry, was due to give the report to President George W Bush on 20 May. He will consider it before sending it to Congress. It comes a year after the last report carried out by the Commission, totalling over 400 pages, was released. When asked why a new one was needed the spokesman said that the Commission would have "come up with new ways to address the situation in Cuba". The Commission was set up by President Bush and was initially chaired by Colin Powell and Senator Mel Martinez. Its aim, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has been "to accelerate the demise of Castro's tyranny". The creation of the State Department's Transition Coordinator has been heavily criticised by Cuban government officials as well as by prominent Cuban dissidents. Elizardo Sanchez, a well know anti-Castro activist said McCarry's appointment was counterproductive as "it will allow the Cuban government to raise the spectre of foreign interference in the internal affairs of our country".

31 May 2006

31 May 2006 Hits: 62

COLOMBIA: Bush congratulates Uribe on re-election

COLOMBIA: Drug-trafficking

CUBA: Information sharing on hurricanes

EL SALVADOR: Increase in deportation

MEXICO: Wall advocates send bricks to Congress

COLOMBIA
President George W. Bush congratulated his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe on 29 May for his convincing victory in presidential elections a day earlier. Uribe won a second term in office with a massive 62% support. A White House spokeswoman, Eryn Witcher, said Bush called Uribe "to congratulate him on his re-election and commend the Colombian people for their very strong commitment to democracy." She added, "The president spoke of the strong friendship between our countries. The president reaffirmed his strong support for Colombia in its continued battle against narco-terrorism in moving forward on our free-trade agreement and in helping our democratic friends in the region." Uribe is an important ally for the US in an Andean region that will look, on paper at least, increasingly hostile if Peru's nationalist presidential candidate, Ollanta Humala, manages to overturn an eight-point deficit to win election on 4 June.

COLOMBIA
President Alvaro Uribe granted requests from the US to extradite two Colombian nationals, James Darío Vivas Yepes and Manuel Bonilla Casquete, to face charges of drug-trafficking in district courts in New York and Florida respectively. Both men are accused of drug-trafficking after 17 December 1997 when Colombia and the US signed an extradition treaty. Uribe extradited nearly 400 Colombian nationals, mainly to the US, during his first term in office.

CUBA
The US and Cuba are coordinating information on hurricanes, a director of Cuba's Instituto de Meteorología de Cuba (Insmet), José Rubiera, said. Rubiera said that Insmet frequently exchanges information with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center (NHC). "Cooperation is crucial to save lives," Rubiera said. "It doesn't matter if you are Cuban, North American, or whatever nationality." Cuba is predicting 15 cyclones for the hurricane season, which lasts from 1 June to 30 November, of which about 60% could become hurricanes but no more than one is likely to hit Cuba. NOAA reckons that there will be 10 hurricanes, 60% of which could become hurricanes of category 3 or higher.

EL SALVADOR
President Tony Saca and interior minister René Figueroa expressed concern on 29 May at the growing number of Salvadoreans being deported from the US. This figure hit 2,999 in the first four months of the year, of which 753 had criminal records. Both men told the press that the government was looking to improve coordination with US authorities over the Salvadoreans being deported so that those with records can face trial. Saca said that the current situation was exacerbating El Salvador's mara problem.

MEXICO
Supporters of the plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico to control illegal immigration have sent around 10,000 bricks to members of Congress. The "Send a Brick Project" charges supporters US$11.95 to post a brick to Washington. On one day last month the US Senate received 2,000 individually packaged bricks. The bricks are arriving prior to Congress's final negotiations on an immigration bill, due to start on 5 June. On 25 May the US Senate approved a bill that would allow the 7m illegal migrants who entered the US before 1 April 2001 to become eligible for US citizenship. The House of Representatives approved a much less liberal immigration reform in December 2005. Hardline anti-immigration Republicans have warned that they will not let the Senate proposal become law.

7 June 2006

07 June 2006 Hits: 221

PERU: Bush cold-shoulders García

HONDURAS: Zelaya meets Bush

VENEZUELA: Dispute over human-trafficking record

TRADE: Deepening ties with Brazil

VENEZUELA: US backs opposes Venezuela's bid for Security Council seat

PERU
US President George W Bush has not yet phoned Alan García to congratulate him for winning Peru's elections on 4 June, in marked contrast to his immediate phone call to Alvaro Uribe within hours of his victory in Colombia's elections a week earlier. It is also a somewhat surprising snub given that García was highly critical of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez during his election campaign. It suggests that the US is unsure of what to make of García, who in his first term of office (1985-1990) criticised the US invasion of Panama in 1989, US intervention in the civil war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and reduced Peru's payment of foreign debt to no more than 10% of its export revenues. García failed to define his stance on key issues such as coca eradication and the renegotiation of contracts with international mining companies during his campaign. On 6 June he clarified his position regarding the free trade agreement with the US, an issue he evaded while campaigning. The top US official to comment on Peru's elections was US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick: “It is encouraging that the democracies of Latin America that feel Venezuela has been infringing on their own democratic processes are standing up on their own," Zoellick said.

HONDURAS
Honduran president Manuel Zelaya met his US counterpart George Bush in the White House for two hours on 5 June. Zelaya discussed ways to expand commercial opportunities between the US and Honduras and appealed for the extension of Temporary Protection Status (TPS), which El Salvador recently got extended for 250,000 Salvadorean immigrants based in the US. The US reckons there are 850,000 Honduran immigrants in the country, including legal and illegal immigrants and those with TPS. Zelaya said that he was satisfied with the conversation and with “the frankness with which he (Bush) spoke about the solutions to the common problems we face in the Western Hemisphere." He voiced his concern about immigration, however. "Immigration should have more of an impact on American legislation. You have to find the origin of the cause," he said. "And the cause is in the development processes of Latin America, Central America, and Mexico. Improving trade opportunities may succeed in attracting foreign investment, and decreasing immigration, delinquency, and poverty in our nations."

VENEZUELA
The Venezuelan embassy in the US criticised its designation by the US Department of State to tier three on human trafficking for the fourth year in a row. “Venezuela categorically rejects this designation, one which ignores Venezuela's many efforts to combat human trafficking," the embassy said, adding that, "it was made with the political goal of isolating and antagonising a government that has put democracy, equitable economic growth, and social development at the top of its agenda." It claimed that Venezuela had, “taken a number of important steps in the last year to protect trafficking victims, prosecute traffickers, and provide police forces and public institutions with the tools to better tackle the problem." It said that, contrary to State Department claims, there were 21 prosecutions of human traffickers in 2005 and three so far this year. The State Department said there were no prosecutions in 2005. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack gave a long and convoluted response suggesting that the timeframe might have been confused as the report covered the time period from March 2005 to March 2006.

TRADE
The US trade secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Fernando Furlan, implemented the first mechanisms for trade consultation between the US and Brazil during a bilateral conference in Rio de Janeiro. The conference was held ahead of a meeting scheduled for September in Washington in which the two countries are expected to formalise new trade agreements. Specialists will look at ways to improve business, harmonise standards, protect intellectual property and promote bilateral exports and investments. Furlan also said that the US and the Brazilian governments will discuss cooperation on bio-fuel programmes. Gutierrez said that the US sees Brazil as its most important partner to promote trade liberalisation, not only in the region but also globally, despite the failure of the two countries to agree during the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). He went on to say that the US and Brazil need to work together to be more competitive in the global market to challenge the Chinese. The US is Brazil's single largest foreign investor and bilateral trade exceeded US$40bn last year.

VENEZUELA
The US government is backing Guatemala's bid to represent Latin America and the Caribbean in the UN Security Council and opposing Venezuela's bid. The US assistant secretary of state for the region, Thomas Shannon, described Venezuela's agenda in international institutions as ''peculiar'' and having a ''confrontational, conflictive edge'' that was unhelpful. Guatemala, on the other hand, has "wide experience" in the UN. Despite US efforts to convince Latin American countries to chose Guatemala, Brazil and Argentina have offered Venezuela their backing. Speaking at the Organisation of American States (OAS) general assembly in Santo Domingo, the Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, reiterated that Brazil would support Venezuela's candidacy, not least because the country will soon be a full member of Mercosur. Amorim, however, said that Brazil was "torn apart" since it also has "excellent relations" with Guatemala. The OAS will decide which country will represent the region during the 2007-2009 term in October.

14 June 2006

14 June 2006 Hits: 224

CUBA: Power spat

BRAZIL: US cancels visa of PT member

NICARAGUA: Ortega accuses US of dividing society

US-MEXICO BORDER: House approved US$1.9bn budget for more security

GUATEMALA: US to support anti-drug task force

CUBA
The US State Department complained to the Cuban government on 12 June about the power being cut off from the US interests section in Havana. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that "On Monday, June 5th at approximately 3 a.m., electricity to the main building of the U.S. interests section in Havana was cut off. And I would note it is very, very strange, and I lay this out for whether it's coincidence or not, but it's the only building or compound on the block that doesn't have power_ and we did pay our power bill." McCormack said that Cuba was using "bullying tactics" because it was displeased with some of the activities being carried out by the interests section.

It is five months since the interests section unveiled a giant electronic billboard on the building with scrolling messages including quotes from Martin Luther King and Gandhi, and questions such as "If it is a battle of ideas, why can't you disagree with your government?" The quotes were projected as President Fidel Castro addressed a large rally outside the building. The Cuban authorities responded by erecting 138 black flags with a white star in the centre to shield the billboard from view. The ostensible purpose of the flags was to represent 138 years of "struggle against the empire".

Granma, the official paper, said that the power shortage was due to the weather and accused the US of looking for any little excuse to break even the most tenuous diplomatic links between the two countries.

BRAZIL
The US Embassy in Brasília announced it would cancel the visa for Bruno Maranhão. Maranhão is the main leader of the Movimento de Liberação dos Sem-Terra (MLST) which organised the invasion of the Brazilian congress building last week. The violence left a trail of destruction and over 20 people injured. Some 500 peasants have been arrested by the police and 41 remain in custody, including Maranhão. More embarrassing still is the fact that Maranhão is a member of President Lula da Silva's Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). He intended to visit his daughter, Alexandra, who currently lives in New York, after the protest. Following a public outcry the PT has decided to open an internal investigation to decide if Maranhão's conduct broke the party's rules. The US Embassy refused to give further explanations. The Brazilian foreign office did not comment.

NICARAGUA
The leader of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), Daniel Ortega, accused the US government of trying to divide Nicaraguan society by refusing to recognise the FSLN as a political party and trying to rally rival presidential candidates to oppose him in elections on 5 November. Ortega made his complaint to electoral observers from the Organization of American States on 13 June. He also accused President Enrique Bolaños of contravening electoral law by openly supporting the candidacy of the dissident liberal, Eduardo Montealegre, during a convention held in Miami. José Rizo, the candidate for the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, and Herty Lewites, an FSLN dissident also attended the convention, to which Ortega was not invited.

US-MEXICO BORDER
On 13 June, the US House of Representatives approved a budget of US$1.9bn for an extra 1,000 Border Patrol agents and new detention centres that can house a total of 4,000 illegal migrants. Previously most illegal migrants have been released when they are caught and simply do not show up in court. The US$1.9bn will also cover the cost of deploying 6,000 National Guardsmen on the border, as announced by President George W Bush in mid May. The US$1.9bn was included in a US$94.5bn package of spending measures covering US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and hurricane repair work in the southern US. Over two-thirds of the money is going to support military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and US$20bn is going to pay for damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Since 2003, the US has spent US$320bn on military operations in Iraq and US$89bn in Afghanistan.

GUATEMALA
The US Southern Command and Drug Enforcement Administration are to support a new task force set up by the government of President Oscar Berger to combat drug-trafficking. The defence minister, General Francisco Bermúdez, said that the new task force, which will be launched in July, would be modelled on the unit set up in the northern department of Petén in January, also with the help of the US Southern Command, with the task of destroying clandestine airstrips used by gangs of traffickers.

21 June 2006

21 June 2006 Hits: 209

IMMIGRATION: Grandson of migrants commands National Guard units

MEXICO: House of Representatives blocks immigration reform

CUBA: After Fidel

NICARAGUA: Election interest following conference

VENEZUELA: US denies pressuring countries over UN security seat

GUATEMALA: First consignment of US military hardware

IMMIGRATION
Charles Rodríguez, the grandson of migrants, is in overall command of the 2,000 National Guardsmen who are deploying along the border between Texas and Mexico. Rodríguez, Lieutenant General of the Texas National Guard, said that this his origins were ultimately from Mexico but that he was a proud citizen of the US. Rodríguez's grandparents emigrated from Mexico and his father was a much-decorated professional soldier. Rodríguez, who commands the 21,000-strong Texas National Guard and the National Guard's airforce, points out that he only learnt Spanish as a boy in Argentina, when his father based there. His father also served in Bolivia and Panama. Rodriguez, who served eight years as a regular in the US Army, after West Point, and another 11 in the Reserves, was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to command the Texas National Guard. He is the first Hispanic to hold the post. The National Guard will be deployed on the border for the next two years to assist the US Border Patrol in deterring undocumented migrants from crossing into the US. The deployment is known as Operation Jump Start. The National Guard will build a lot of the new border infrastructure, Rodríguez said, while the Border Patrol focuses on arresting undocumented migrants.

MEXICO
Republicans in the US House of Representatives announced on 20 June that they would not consider the Senate proposal on immigration reform until August. The Republican leadership in the House said that it intended to hold national hearings to consider immigration reform. Harry Reid, (D, Nevada) the minority leader in the Senate, said that this showed that the Republicans were determined to halt any liberal reform of US immigration laws. US political commentators say that the Republicans' decision is a defeat for President George W Bush, who had endorsed the more liberal Senate immigration reform, especially the provisions that would allow undocumented migrants already settled in the US the right to seek US citizenship.

CUBA
A highly respected US specialist on Cuba, Brian Latell, a longtime CIA analyst who now teaches at the University of Miami, has just released a book After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's Regime and Cuba's Next Leader, which has provoked controversy in Miami and among Cuban dissident groups. Latell argues that the transition of power from President Fidel Castro has already begun with Raúl Castro "a kind of regent, amending, interpreting and filtering Fidel's decisions". Raúl is the obvious choice as he controls the armed forces and security services and much of the economy but, at 75, he is only five years Fidel's junior. Latell, who has closely followed every speech and public appearance of Fidel since 1964 is convinced that the Cuban leader's "mental and physical condition has conspicuously deteriorated over the last two years or so."

"He will soon be 80 years old and is suffering from Parkinson's disease, and probably other serious ailments. His public performances have become embarrassments for all who witness them because now he frequently rambles into incoherence when speaking," Latell said. He thinks that Raúl will have real trouble stepping into his brother's shoes as he "lacks nearly all of Fidel's most important leadership qualities. He is an awkward public speaker. He is not charismatic, and, in reality, is disliked and feared by most Cubans (and) is known to drink excessively." He suggests that popular demonstrations are distinctly possible after Fidel's death as "the younger generation of Cubans is especially alienated and disenfranchised. They have suffered only hardships and economic deprivation since the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991 and have little or no memories of better, more heroic revolutionary days."

NICARAGUA
November's presidential and legislative elections are attracting much more interest in the US since three of the four candidates attended a conference in Miami last week. The dissident liberal Eduardo Montealegre later took part in a discussion co-sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, the Council for the Americas and the American Enterprise Institute during which he said that the elections would have "political, economic and geo-strategic consequences for the United States... (Nicaraguans) will either vote to join the expanding Castro/Chávez alliance or they will vote to continue the journey to democracy and development through building democratic institutions and free markets," Montealegre said. Geoff Thale, an expert from the Washington Office of Latin America, said that Montealegre was exaggerating the threat posed by Daniel Ortega of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional. "It seems that the United States has a policy of opposing Ortega in sort of a knee-jerk way," Thale said. "The US concern should be about the integrity of the electoral process and not the outcome. To suggest that any government in Nicaragua is a threat to US national security is frankly ludicrous. The United States could live with an Ortega presidency," he added.

Riordan Roett, the director of the Western Hemisphere Program at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies said that the campaign was likely to be "one of the most contentious and mean-spirited in the country's electoral history (with) the political future of Ortega (running for the fourth consecutive time) on the line." Roett added "While he has a slight edge in the polls, they are highly unreliable." Indeed, a poll released by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research on 20 June showed the dissident Sandinista Herty Lewites on 28% followed by Montealegre on 27% and Ortega on 26%. The previous poll in May, albeit by a different polling firm, had Ortega and Montealegre tied for first with Lewites out of contention.

VENEZUELA
The US said on 20 June that it is backing Guatemala over Venezuela for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, which becomes vacant next year. However, State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli flatly denied an assertion by The Los Angeles Times on 20 June that the US was pressuring Latin American countries not to support Venezuela. The paper alleged that the US had threatened to deny flight training to Chilean pilots for F-16 fighter planes the country is buying, if Chile backed Venezuela. The Los Angeles Times said that the Bush administration was concerned that Venezuela, while it would not have a Security Council veto, would attempt to disrupt efforts in the council to take action against Iran. "We think that the election of a non-permanent member to the Security Council is crucial, and it affects how well the council will be able to address threats to international peace and security. We've got our views on who are good candidates, and obviously we think Guatemala would be an excellent one, given its participation in peacekeeping operations. You know, Guatemalans have shed blood for the UN, and they are, we believe, a strong candidate, and deserving of support." If Latin American countries fail to reach a consensus by October, the UN General Assembly will decide on the candidate.

GUATEMALA
On 20 June the Guatemalan army received a consignment of US military hardware at a ceremony attended by both the president, Ãƒâ€œscar Berger, and the defence minister, Francisco Bermúdez. The US ambassador, James H. Derham was also present. More than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the last shipment of military materiel reached Guatemala from the US. The US imposed an embargo on military equipment because of a poor human rights record during the long internal conflict between 1960 and 1996. The ban was lifted in early 2006 following a visit by US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Berger said that the new army was "different, professional". The consignment is worth US$1.6m and includes generators, backpacks, boots and binoculars, as well as compasses and communications equipment. According to the military, the hardware will be used "for peacekeeping missions within the context of the Conferencia de Fuerzas Armadas Centroamericanas".

28 June 2006

28 June 2006 Hits: 90

MEXICO: US sends warning to López Obrador

ANDES: Congress gives thumbs down to extending Atpdea

PERU: Mafias "control coca production"

CUBA: Posada Carriles motion

NICARAGUA: Shannon visits

VENEZUELA: Congress claims oil production still down

BOLIVIA: Relations with US "not at their best"

MEXICO
Eric Watnik, the spokesman for the Latin America bureau at the State Department, told Agence France Presse on 27 June that the US would support whoever was elected as Mexico's next president on 2 July, provided he was elected fairly and governed democratically. This last phrase is used by the US to stigmatise President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who has been elected president twice and won a recall referendum. Rightwingers in Mexico claim that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who narrowly heads the opinion polls, has chavista tendencies. Pamela Starr, from the Council for Foreign Relations in New York, said that the US government had a clear preference in the election and that its preference was not López Obrador. She argued that the US had learnt, though chastening experience, that expressing a preference in Mexican elections was self-defeating. Other Latin American watchers in Washington, such as Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, argue that a López Obrador victory would allow the US to relaunch its policy towards Mexico which has become bogged down by the issue of reforming US immigration rules.

ANDES
Atpdea Steve Schatz, the spokesman for Dan Burton, the chairman of the subcommittee for Latin America in the House of Representatives, said on 27 June that congress would not extend trade preferences to Bolivia and Ecuador under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act. The main reason for this decision is that the US Chamber of Commerce, the country's main business lobby, is against Atpdea extension, particularly for Ecuador, which the chamber claims has expropriated assets belonging to a US oil company, Occidental Petroleum. The US Trade Representative pointed out that none of the Atpdea benefits have yet to be cancelled. Bolivia is planning to send a delegation to Washington in early July to lobby for the extension of Atpdea. Currently 6,000 Bolivian exports benefit from lower US tariffs because of Atpdea and perhaps as many as 100,000 jobs depend on Atpdea exports to the US.

PERU
The production and the illegal industrialisation of coca in Peru is controlled by "powerful mafias that are threatening the national security of the country," the US ambassador to Peru, James Curtis Struble, warned on 27 June. Struble was addressing the fourth international forum "The problem of drug-trafficking in Peru: a new political agenda" held in Lima and organised by the state drug agency Comisión para el Desarrollo y Vida sin Drogas (Devida). Struble said that the US was working closely with the Peruvian government and was pleased to note that, in the first four months of 2006, confiscations of coca paste had increased tenfold in comparison with the previous year. Struble went on to claim that an environmental disaster in the Peruvian Amazon was imminent because the production of 1.1m tonnes of coca leaf had led to "the deforestation of more than 2m hectares of the Peruvian Amazon." It will be interesting to see what coca policies the incoming government of president-elect Alan García implements. García skirted around the issue of coca eradication during his election campaign but earlier this week he met Nelson Palomino, a senior leader of the coca growers, who was recently released from jail after serving three years for instigating social unrest.

CUBA
Luis Posada Carriles, the anti-Castro militant, could be freed after a hearing on 6 July in a federal court in El Paso, Texas. On 23 June his lawyer, Eduardo Soto, presented a motion before the court claiming that all of the undercover operations his client carried out in Central America were done in the name of US national security against the threat of communist insurgency and that these actions were known by top officials in Washington, including the then-vice-president George H. Bush. Soto said that his client had always shown "absolute loyalty to the US and never sought to damage the country or its people". The 14-page document presented by Soto sought to persuade the court to reject the decision in March by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that Posada should be detained because he has "a history of engaging in criminal activity, associating with individuals involved in criminal activity, and participating in violent acts that indicate a disregard for the safety of the general public". On 6 July the federal court could decide whether to grant Posada's US citizenship application. It has already ruled out extraditing him to Venezuela or Cuba, both want him for the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976.

NICARAGUA
The US assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, Tom Shannon, visited Managua on 26 and 27 June where he met two of the presidential candidiates in elections on 5 November, Eduardo Montealegre and Herty Lewites, dissidents from the two main parties, Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) and the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), who have set up their own political parties. Shannon said that Montealegre and Lewites "represent the future of this country". While he said he regretted not having time to meet the candidiate for PLC, José Rizo, there is a suspicion that he pointedly snubbed him because of his links to the corrupt former president Arnoldo Alemán, and it is difficult to see his visit as anything other than a strong endorsement of the two dissidents. Previously, US backing has proved to be the kiss of death.

VENEZUELA
A report by the US Congress's General Accountability Office (GAO) claimed that Venezuela's output of crude oil had still not recovered to the same levels as before the strike-cum-lockout of the state-owned Pdvsa in 2002-03. The Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations commissioned the report 18 months ago to assess the repercussions of a possible cut in oil supply to the US. Industry experts quoted by the report suspect Venezuela's own production figures are "exaggerated", while the GAO said, "everything suggests the production of Venezuelan crude oil has decreased between 2001 and 2005". The International Energy Agency estimated production in that period had fallen from 3.1m bpd to 2.6m bpd or 16%. The Venezuelans claim they are now producing 3.2 m bpd. The GAO report reckoned the number of active oil wells averaged 66 in 2001. In January 2003 that number reached a low of 12 in the depths of the strike, before rising to an average of 60 in 2005. These figures are, according to the GAO, further evidence that production has fallen.

BOLIVIA
Bolivian foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, admitted on 23 June that the country's relations with the US are "not at their best" at the moment. The comment follows a warning from USAID representative, Adolfo Franco, that Washington does not want the Venezuelan model copied in Bolivia. On 22 June Bolivian authorities complained about a CIA operative allegedly training members of the US armed forces within the country. He is accused of using a civilian course as a cover to impart military instruction. The Bolivian government resented the entry of military personnel "disguised" as students and tourists. The US has also recently disagreed with the UN on the levels of coca grown in Bolivia. While the UN claims levels in 2005 were down 8%, the US claims they were up by the same percentage and that excess coca would be channelled into the drugs trade. Despite the declarations, Choquehuanca also expressed Bolivia's desire to improve relations and receive Washington's support in their drives to strengthen Bolivian democracy.

5 July 2006

05 July 2006 Hits: 79

IMMIGRATION: Bush changes stance on immigration

IMMIGRATION: National Guard deployment sluggish

ANDEAN: Question mark over extension of Atpdea

MERCOSUR: Chávez signs up

COLOMBIA: US ambassador sceptical of Farc offer

BRAZIL: Lula supports Venezuela's UN bid

IMMIGRATION
President George W Bush is signalling to Republicans in the House of Representatives that he is prepared to move more towards backing their hardline reform of US immigration laws. Previously the president appeared inclined towards the more liberal reform emanating from the Senate. Candi Wolff, the White House director of legislative affairs, told The New York Times on 4 July that President Bush would only look at the idea of guestworker and citizenship programmes once specific border security goals had been met. This could lead to a two-year delay in introducing more liberal guestworker programmes and in allowing illegal migrants established in the US access to US citizenship.

This is a major change because previously President Bush had advocated a parallel series of reforms to the US immigration laws. These would liberalise guestworker programmes at the same time as tightening border security (by deploying the National Guard along the border) and allowing established, but illegal, migrants access to US citizenship. The House proposal that seems to interest President Bush most comes from Mike Pence (Rep, Indiana) who wants all established but illegal migrants to leave the US briefly before being allowed to apply for US citizenship. Democrats claim that this proposal is impracticable.

IMMIGRATION
On 1 July, one month after the US National Guard started to deploy along the border with Mexico as part of Operation Jumpstart, only 2,500 soldiers have reached their posts. Kristine Munn, spokesman for the National Guard in Arlington, said on 1 July that 11 states had committed to send detachments to the border. President George W Bush had promised to deploy 6,000 National Guardsmen along the border. Currently, according to Munn, not more than 2,500 are deployed. She added that besides the four border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, the states of Delaware; Arkansas; South Dakota; Wisconsin; Kentucky; Montana and Tennessee had sent detachments. President Bush had asked all 50 states to send National Guardsmen to the border.

ANDEAN
On 30 June the secretary general of the Andean Community, Allan Wagner, travelled to Washington to seek an extension to the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (Atpdea), due to expire at the end of 2006. So far, he has little cause for optimism: the US has expressed its irritation with Ecuador's decision to terminate the contract of Occidental, a US oil firm, by suspending free trade talks; Bolivia has not even sought a free trade agreement; and Peru and Colombia have signed their own deals with the US. Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator on the US Senate Finance Committee said, "I am not going to be very open to authorising the Atpdea again when Bolivia and Ecuador failed to take advantage of the opportunity to negotiate a free trade agreement." Neither Ecuador nor Bolivia seems overly concerned by the US attitude. The Ecuadorean presidential secretary, José Modesto Apolo, said that Ecuador should not have to go begging for its preferential tariffs "because we have spent the money of the Ecuadorean people on combating drug trafficking".

MERCOSUR
President Hugo Chávez signed Venezuela's letter of accession to the Mercosur customs' union, comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, on 4 July in Caracas. Venezuela's entry into the South American bloc is a blow to US policymakers who are trying to sideline Chávez and promote their own trade plans for the region under the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Venezuela's membership reveals the bloc's leaders' unwillingness to turn their backs on Chávez . Furthermore, Venezuela's entry into the Mercosur seems to have been staged to thwart a US-sponsored trade agreement for the western hemisphere. Despite clear signs of displeasure from the US administration, Mercosur leaders told reporters they do not believe Venezuela's membership will "embitter" relations. According to the Brazilian President Lula da Silva, the Mercosur is a place for trade and "not to sell ideologies".

COLOMBIA
On 2 July the US ambassador to Colombia, William Wood, said that he did not believe the recent announcement by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia that it was seeking dialogue with the government. In an interview published on the internet, Farc leader Raúl Reyes said that the guerrilla group would accept a prisoner swap if the government demilitarized an area in the south of the country. Wood said the Farc "are not looking for a humanitarian agreement, but a tactical one". He added that the policy of the US was "never to negotiate with terrorists", but said the US would not obstruct the political decisions of the Colombian government.

BRAZIL
President Lula da Silva of Brazil has, for the first time, announced publicly his support for Venezuela to become Latin America's representative at the UN Security Council from 2007. The Brazilian government had already declared its support for Venezuela through the foreign minister, Celso Amorim. Lula's public support is crucial, since Venezuela's bid is opposed by the US government, which supports Guatemala. Amorim said that Brazil was "torn apart" since it also maintains good relations with the Central American country. According to Lula, the current UN rules "need to be modified to better answer to [Latin American] interests". In 2005 Brazil campaigned for a permanent seat in the Security Council, but had its intentions hindered by US opposition to changes in the current set up.

12 July 2006

12 July 2006 Hits: 76

MEXICO: Bush backtracks over election call

BOLIVIA: New US ambassador

CUBA: US release new democratic transition report

PERU: Toledo visits US to push FTA

PANAMA: Anti-drugs prosecutor barred from US

MEXICO
President George W Bush telephoned Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, the rightwing Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) candidate for the presidency, on 7 July to congratulate him on winning the elections. Embarrassingly, the White House admitted on 10 July that it would reconsider its position if the result changed. This is possible because the results are being challenged by the loser, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The final decision on who won the elections will be made by the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación by the end of August. The final count of the 41.7m votes cast on 2 July had Calderón just under 244,000 ahead of Lopez Obrador. Calderón is widely presumed to be more pro-US than López Obrador because he has a Master's degree from Harvard.

The White House clarification of its position on 10 July followed criticism by Calderón, on 7 July, of the US deployment of National Guardsmen along the border and the construction of more barriers on the US side of the border to hinder people trying to cross from the south. Calderón said that the US and Canada would do better to "build a bridge or a kilometre of road in Zacatecas or Michoacán [the Mexican states that provide most of the migrants to the US] than 10 miles of walls along the border in Texas or Arizona."

The White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said: "the last time I looked, he [Calderon] had no authority over the activities of the government of the United States". Snow added that Bush's congratulatory call to Calderón on 7 July, from Airforce One returning from Chicago to Washington, was "very short". Snow said that Bush would continue to talk to President Vicente Fox on bilateral issues.

BOLIVIA
President George W Bush nominated Philip S Goldberg, a career State Department officer, as the new US ambassador to La Paz. He will take over from David Greenlee. Goldberg is currently head of the US mission in Pristina, Kosovo, but previously served in Latin America as deputy head of mission in Santiago, Chile. Greenlee, another career officer, has been in La Paz for the past three and half years. Bolivia still does not have an ambassador in place in Washington. President Evo Morales's first choice turned the move down and his second choice, Gustavo Guzmán, still has to be approved formally.

CUBA
On 10 July US President George W Bush approved an US$80m plan to democratise Cuba over the next two years, emphasising the US's commitment to a government of "transition, not succession" following the resignation, or more likely, death, of Fidel Castro. The report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (CAFC) backs the tightening of existing sanctions, increasing US attempts to break the island's "information blockade" and strengthening financial support to dissident groups in Cuba.

Interestingly, the report does not mention increased restrictions on US agricultural exports to the island. Since 2001 Cuba has imported around US$1.1bn in US farm products. In mid June the US congress approved an amendment to ease restrictions on Cuban payments for US agricultural exports. The amendment would mean Cuba would no longer have to pay for the products before they leave US ports. Since the rule came into effect, sales of corn to Cuba fell 21%, meat sales dropped 26% and wheat sales 17%. However, the amendment must be passed by the US Senate and signed by the president before becoming effective. A similar measure was passed last year but was dropped due to a veto threat by President Bush.

PERU
On 12 July President Alejandro Toledo completed his final tour of the US in an attempt to persuade US congressmen to back the free trade agreement between Peru and the US. The deal has already been ratified by the Peruvian congress. Toledo said that he hoped to persuade Democrats as well as Republicans to back the FTA, ideally before 28 July, when Toledo hands the presidential sash over to Alan García. Most Democrats were against the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the US, which passed by just two votes in July 2005, citing concerns over worker rights. The FTA will be analysed today (12 July) by a congressional committee; it was approved by the US Senate finance committee on 29 June.

PANAMA
On 11 July the US embassy in Panama confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security had refused entry to the Panamanian anti-drugs prosecutor Aminta Corro on 3 July. The US ambassador, William Ostick, said that Corro had been held and questioned for a number of hours at Miami international airport, where she had arrived in order to visit her US-based family, before being sent back to Panama. Corro did not appeal against the decision. Ostick said he could give no more details about the case but was providing Panama's attorney general with more information.

19 July 2006

19 July 2006 Hits: 77

MEXICO: Bush accuses Fox of "mishearing"

LEBANON: South Americans back Arabs against Israel

ARGENTINA: US ambassador extols relationship

BRAZIL: Bush backs Brazil at WTO

COLOMBIA: Pastrana writes to New York Times

MEXICO

President George W Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said on 18 July that President Fox had "misheard" what President Bush said about immigration at the St Petersburg G8 summit on 15 and 16 July. Fox said that President Bush told him that there was no way to approve immigration before elections in November. Snow said: "the President of Mexico may have mis-heard. [President Bush] said that there may be some timing issues before Labor Day [the first weekend in September]...but the President is still committed to comprehensive immigration reform and getting it done as quickly as possible. And he's working with Congress on that and members of the administration are doing the same."

LEBANON

South American governments condemned Israel for attacking Lebanon in a joint declaration issued in Caracas on 18 July. The document, signed by South American and Arab representatives at a follow-up meeting of last year's Arab-South American Summit, called for an immediate ceasefire. The joint declaration said Israel's attacks were "disproportionate" and "resulted in the loss of innocent civilian lives". The document went on to say that the attacks "violate international human rights" and called for the UN to "take on its responsibilities in order to restore peace and security" in the Middle East.
The joint declaration follows Venezuela's membership in the Arab League as an "observer". The document goes explicitly against the stance taken by the US senate which approved a resolution that viewed the operation as self defence by Israel. President George W Bush publicly blamed Arab terrorists and the Syrian government for the escalation of violence in the region. Bush believes Syria could stop the war by restraining the Hezbollah faction.

ARGENTINA

The US ambassador to Argentina, Lino Gutiérrez, went out of his way to extol US ties with Argentina before he leaves his post on 21 July. Gutiérrez said he had always had very cordial relations with President Néstor Kirchner and that ties between the two countries had strengthened in recent years. He congratulated Argentina for its "highly impressive" organisation of the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata last November, which was attended by President George W. Bush. This shows pretty selective memory given the way that Kirchner savaged the US proposal for free trade with Latin America during the summit. It also shows that the US is determined to accommodate Argentina despite its close relations with Venezuela. Gutiérrez briefly touched on Venezuela, saying that while "nobody can criticise Argentina for looking for the best economic relations it can get", the US remained "very concerned by the situation there (Venezuela) and the alliances that señor (Hugo) Chávez is looking for with North Korea and Iran".

BRAZIL

President, George W Bush, told his Brazilian counterpart, President Lula da Silva, that he will "fight special interests" to improve his previous offer to cut 54% in US subsidies given to US farmers. In a year of legislative elections in the US, however, Bush's pledge will be difficult to deliver. Bush's "commitment to the success" of the WTO's Doha Round negotiations followed Lula's plea to developed nations during the G8 meeting in Saint Petersburg. According to the Brazilian President, negotiations to conclude the agreement have halted due to a "political crisis". Brazil signalled it is ready to open its domestic market to US and European industrialised products in exchange for better offers from industrialised countries to cut farm subsidies. G8 leaders approved a declaration extending the deadline for the end of the Doha negotiations for another month, to 17 August.

COLOMBIA

Andrés Pastrana, Colombia's ambassador to the US, sent a letter to The New York Times on 13 July in response to an editorial entitled"A Dangerous Job in Colombia", printed by the paper a day earlier. Pastrana said that the claim that "intimidation has stopped union activity or sent leaders into hiding'' was completely false. He said, "Colombia has a vibrant labor union movement. As evidence of this, labor leaders have been elected to some of the most important political posts in the country. The mayor of Bogotá and the governor of Valle de Cauca_ are former trade union leaders." He defended the work of President Alvaro Uribe, saying that, "Since 1999, nearly 8,000 labor leaders in Colombia have received protection financed by the Colombian and United States governments precisely because we recognize the importance of the trade union movement in Colombia's democracy and free-market economy."
Interestingly, Pastrana resigned on 12 July - before the publication of the letter - over Uribe's appointment as ambassador to France of Ernesto Samper, whose US visa was revoked because of alleged ties to drug traffickers. Pastrana said that Uribe's decision "left him with no choice but to resign" as it compromised his position as the main spokesman in Washington for Colombia's cooperation in the war on drugs. Uribe named Foreign Minister Carolina Barco as the new ambassador to Washington.

26 July 2006

26 July 2006 Hits: 241

BRAZIL: Bush and Lula talk South America

PERU: US free trade agreement

GUYANA: US revokes visa of chief of police

BOLIVIA: García Linera makes little progress

IMMIGRATION: Hispanics spurn Republicans over immigration

BRAZIL
Diplomats have disclosed part of a private conversation between the US President George W Bush and his Brazilian counterpart, Lula da Silva, during the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg last week. According to Brazilian diplomats, Bush is "well-aware" of the changing politics in South America and asked Lula to help mediate US relations with Brazil's South American neighbours, particularly Bolivia and Venezuela. Bush surprised Lula by asking the Brazilian for an appraisal of the forthcoming presidential election in October. Confident, Lula answered that his campaign is "going well". After ensuring that he will most likely have to deal with Lula for two more years, Bush requested Brazilian help to "maintain an open dialogue" with South America. Lula responded by saying that the US should renew its preferential trade agreement with Andean countries and assist Bolivia's President Evo Morales by financing social projects in the country. With regards to Venezuela, Lula assured Bush he is trying to influence President Hugo Chávez to use more conciliatory rhetoric. Lula, however, pointed out that Brazil's influence with Chávez had been weakened by the US embargo on the sale of Embraer military planes to Venezuela. Lula reminded Bush that because of the embargo Venezuela ended up buying planes from Russia. Bush said he "understood the point".

PERU
The conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, is advocating that the US Congress approve a free trade agreement with Peru, which was recently approved by the Peruvian congress. The Heritage Foundation released a report on 24 July saying that "failure to advance U.S.-Latin American trade relations would be an incredible blunder that jeopardizes one of America's best interests: preserving peace and safety at home. Worse, it would drive allies into the hands of adversaries anxious to build a new order of authoritarian governments and aid networks based on the models of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro." It goes on to argue that an FTA with Peru would "dispel perceptions of US withdrawal from the region and counteract growing anti-American sentiment." The FTA would also replace the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (Atpdea), which expires at the end of 2006 and provide a reward, the report argues, for Peru's assistance in combating drug-trafficking. The report concludes that "With U.S. influence in Latin America waning relative to the growing power of Venezuela and China in the region, fostering deeper ties and liberalism through strong trade agreements is a necessity."

GUYANA
The US embassy revoked the visitor's visa of Guyana's acting commissioner of police, Henry Greene, on 25 July. This followed its decision to revoke his diplomatic visa earlier this year. It is a blow to the credibility of Guyana's police force as Greene had been tipped to replace Commissioner Winston Felix, who is on pre-retirement leave. Greene said he had been notified of the decision but not the reason behind it. It is not the first time that the US embassy has revoked the visa of a prominent Guyanese official. Home affairs minister Ronald Gajraj and former acting police commissioner, Floyd McDonald, had their visas revoked two years ago after speculation emerged about their alleged links to a death squad formed to clamp down on escaped criminals.

BOLIVIA
Bolivia's vice-president, Alvaro García Linera, paid his long-awaited visit to the US from 20 to 22 July but admitted that he had only moderate success. His goal was to lobby the administration and congress to extend the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (Atpdea), which gives Bolivian exports easier access to the US, beyond its scheduled expiration at the end of this year. The US Congress now goes into recess until September and then the mid-term elections follow in November, so time is short, Bolivian businessmen say. They claim that the government is deluding itself if it believes that Atpdea will be extended. García Linera was also the most senior member of President Evo Morales' government to visit Washington since Morales took office in January. Bolivia still does not have an ambassador in Washington. García Linera said that 100,000 Bolivian jobs depended on the Atpdea and because of it, Bolivia's exports to the US were now US$300m rather than the US$182m before Atpdea was promulgated. On 25 July, President Evo Morales said that he would travel to Washington in September to lobby for the Atpdea to be extended.

IMMIGRATION
A telephone opinion poll by the Tarrance Group, published in the New York Times on 25 July found that 69% of the Hispanics who had followed the US debate on immigration reform had decided that they would not vote for a Republican candidate in the forthcoming mid-term congressional elections. This is a change from what has happened in recent elections, in 2000 and 2004 when 40% of the Hispanic voters backed the Republicans. Just under half the Hispanics polled, (47%) said that they had been insulted or offended as a result of the debate over immigration reform. Almost three-quarters (73%) of this subgroup said that they would not vote Republican in November. Hispanics form 14% of the US population but only 5% of the electorate. Most are well informed about the debate on immigration reform: two-thirds knew that each house of congress had proposed very different immigration reforms.

Items