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The Salvadorean congress is struggling with a draft anti-terrorism law the government tried to rush through in early July, in the wake of an unclear incident in which two police officers were shot dead and another 10 were wounded. The bill, first submitted to the legislative assembly three years ago, has still not come up with a definition of terrorism that satisfies all parties.

The incident which prompted the government to speed up passage of the anti-terrorism law took place on 5 July. A column of students protesting increases in bus rates was intercepted by police, who say they began firing tear gas and rubber bullets when the demonstrators started wrecking phone booths and automated tellers. As the students took refuge in the buildings of the Universidad de El Salvador, gunfire broke out. Television images recorded the appearance among them of hooded persons carrying arms. They also showed armed men taking up positions on the roof of a nearby hospital. A police helicopter came under fire; witnesses say a sniper on the aircraft fired into the university, where one member of staff received a bullet in the chest.

President Elí­as Antonio Saca and interior minister René Figueroa immediately blamed groups liked to the leftist Frente Farabundo Martí­ de Liberación Nacional (FMLN). Figueroa said the gunmen had used AK-47 assault rifles. Saca said that when investigations had been completed a report would be prepared for the OAS and the UN, expressing 'concern' about the FMLN's involvement, which would entail a breach of the 1992 peace agreements inasmuch as it would have been 'maintaining an armed group'. Conclusions began to vary as evidence surfaced, particularly after the media produced an image of one man firing an M-16. 

The FMLN says the shootings were the work of agents provocateurs. President Saca nonetheless persuaded the leaders of Central America, Colombia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, gathered in Panama for a summit, to go along with his interpretation of events and issue a statement condemning 'the inadmissible terrorist acts' of 5 July.

In San Salvador the government urged congress to approve the anti-terrorism law without debate. The legislators demurred, but went as far as to set up a special committee to speed up proceedings (they expect to get the work done in about six weeks). The government's most recent draft, submitted last year, typifies 27 acts as 'terrorist' and imposes prison terms of up to 50 years.

Ernesto Angulo, who represents the ruling Arena party on the committee, announced on 13 July that the UNODC would be invited to send experts to help out with the definition of terrorism. Mario Ponce, representative of the centrist Partido de Conciliación Nacional (PCN), says it is important to avoid simply transplanting other peoples' definitions and to spell out 'when an act will be deemed terrorist in this country.' He is also pressing for coordination of the new law with the existing penal legislation, to avoid overlaps and redundancies.

It is worth pointing out that, though an assiduous follower of the US lead in matters such as the 'War on Terror', President Saca has adopted a position not too far from those of Cuba and Venezuela regarding Luis Posada Carriles, the onetime CIA asset and dedicated anti-Castroite wanted for the downing of a commercial aircraft and for masterminding bombing campaigns in Cuba and Central America, now seeking to avoid expulsion from the US.

He has denied claims made by Posada that high officials of his government had been discussing with him the prospects for granting him asylum, noting, 'In El Salvador there is not entry for terrorists [...] for people who have been involved in acts of terrorism.' Both Cuba and Venezuela want to try Posada on charges of terrorism, but a US court has blocked his rendition to either on grounds that he might be tortured.

PEOPLE PROFILE is part of the Latinnews Daily service. Published every Tuesday, People Profile and describes the professional background of key people emerging on the political and economic scene.

Who is ADAN CHAVEZ FRIAS?

He is the elder brother of the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez . 

Why watch him?

Adán is a member of the national assembly and last week became Hugo's chief of staff. He was previously president of the Instituto de Tierras, which has been handling land reform.

Adán is one of the hard-line military wing of the ruling Movimiento Quinta República (MVR) To many commentators, Adán is the intellectual power behind Hugo. 

THE FILE

Born:

1953, Estado de Mérida, Venezuela. 

Education:

He has a physics degree and a Masters in higher education. He has carried out research in biophysics. 

Public life:

The Chávez brothers are the sons of a governor of the ranching state of Barinas. Adán was a member of the Ruptura political movement and of the PRV in Mérida during his time as a student. Following the election of this brother to the presidency he has started to take a higher profile. He has been heavily criticised by the opposition for corruption. 

Timeline:

2000
Founder member of the Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 2000 and of the Movimiento Quinta República. 

2001
National director of the Movimiento Quinta República. 

2001
Elected to the national constituent assembly, representing the state of Mérida. He acted as vice-president of the Comisión de Disposiciones Transitorias, and president of the subcommission for domestic policy in the Comisión Legislativa Nacional, and as his brother Hugo's private secretary. 

2001

President of the Instituto Nacional de Tierras. 

Strong points:

He enjoys Hugo's full confidence. As an assembly member, while also being the President's chief of staff, he is well placed to see what is happening politically. 

Weak points:

He has been accused of corruption, especially buying luxurious properties in Venezuela and Miami (USA). His opponents say that it is only his blood-link to the President that has given him so much influence. 

Prospects:

Adán is one of the officials responsible for relaunching Hugo as a Latin American leader. His ideological hold over his younger brother is unquestioned. He will also have a key role in any settlement over the controversial issue of a referendum on whether Hugo should continue in office, as he is responsible for electoral policy in the MVR.

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

Who is Celso Amorim?
The foreign minister of Brazil is a key policymaker in President Lula da Silva's administration. He is the standard-bearer for the aggressive foreign policy which is designed to put the country at the centre of the discussions between the world's developed economies and the developing ones. Celso Amorim is something of an institution in Brazil and one of the region's top intellectuals.

Why watch him?
Amorim has led Brazil's tough line in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations with the US. He has also encouraged the strategy of forming alliances with other major countries, to form a group to stand up to the US in international negotiations. The results of this policy have been economic and political agreements with China and India and Brazil's unquestioned leadership of Mercosul. Brazil is now looking for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Born: 3 June 1942.

Place of birth: Santos, São Paulo, Brazil.

Education:
Graduated from the Instituto Rio Branco in 1965. Post graduate degree in International Relations from the Academia Diplomática of Vienna in 1967. Doctorate in political science and international relations from the London School of Economics (1968/1970). Professor of political sciences and International relations at the Universidade de Brasília.

Public life:
He has been the dominant figure in Brazilian foreign policymaking for the past 20 years, He started as a third secretary in the foreign ministry and moved quickly up through the ranks to first secretary, then secretary-general and finally foreign minister. He is married to Ana Maria Amorim, and has four children (Vicente, Anita, João and Pedro).

Timeline

2003: Named as foreign minister by President Lula da Silva.
2001: Chairman of the services committee of the World Trade Organisation.
2000-2001: Chairman of the management committee of the International Labour Organisation.
1999-2001: Brazil's ambassador to the ILO
1997: Adviser to the president of the UN's general assembly on how to reform the UN.
1993-1994: Foreign minister, appointed by President Fernando Enrique Cardoso.
1993: Secretary-general at the foreign ministry.
1993: Director-general of the economics department at the foreign ministry.
1989-1990: Director-general of the cultural department at the foreign ministry.
1985-1988: Minister of international affairs at the science and technology ministry.
1979-1982: Managing director of EMBRAFILME.

Strong points:
He is one of the most prominent Latin American diplomats and one of the 50 most influential players on the world stage. He has his own ideas on foreign policy, beyond those of the administration of President Lula. Yet under Lula he is working to cement Brazil's position as one of the 10 most powerful countries on the planet. He is a tough and canny negotiator with a powerful mind that is respected even by his political opponents. He is probably the third-most powerful man in the Brazilian government after President Lula and his right-hand man, José Dirceu.

Weak points:
He does not have a political base within Lula's Partido dos Trabalhadores. The party is unhappy with Amorim's pragmatic, rather than principled, approach to foreign policy. In the US he is seen as anti-American. Amorim has, however, consistently affirmed support for the US, though Brazil has a succession of commercial squabbles with it.

Prospects:
Amorim is a key figure in the Lula administration and its policy of raising Brazil's international profile. He has chalked up several victories, notably the tripartite alliance with India and China which sunk the attempt by the US and the European Union to impose their wishes on the rest of the world at the recent World Trade Organization meeting in Cancún. He also scored another victory in getting the US to accept Brazil's vision of how the FTAA should develop. This record means that Amorim has plenty of credit with the government. One area where Amorim may face problems is with Brazil's allies in Mercosul. They are getting increasingly fed up at being taken for granted by Brazil.

What is Banrural? Banco de Desarrollo Rural SA, (Banrural) is a joint-venture (estructura mixta) bank in which the state is the main shareholder. Guatemala's second largest bank after Banco Industrial, Banrural was created in 1997 with the aim of promoting rural development and was unusual in its declared dual objective of generating profit while fulfilling a social mission. Colom recently described the bank as the “financial arm" of the government.

Why watch it? Banrural is at the heart of the recent Rosenberg scandal which has shaken the country: in a posthumous video released on 11 May 2009, murdered lawyer Roberto Rosenberg accuses Banrural's general manager, Fernando Peña and its president, José Ángel López (along with President Alvaro Colom; private secretary to the presidency, Gustavo Alejos; and other closes aides) of orchestrating not only his killing (which occurred the previous day) but those of his client, businessman Khalil Musa and Musa's daughter. The Musas were murdered on 14 April.

Rosenberg said that Alejos initially offered Musa a position on the Banrural board of directors but both Peña and López opposed the appointment and ultimately Musa was killed for his refusal to take up a post which would require him to cover-up “daily acts of corruption". These, Rosenberg said, ranged from “money laundering to the transfer of public funds to non-existent programmes organised by Sandra de Colom as well as financing fake companies used by drug-traffickers". Colom and the Banrural directors categorically deny the claims arguing that the video is a plot to bring down the government by the business elite, angered over Colom's efforts to introduce social reform - of which the bank with its declared social aspect would appear a key component.

Date of birth: 31 July 1997.

Public life: Banrural came into being in 1997 with the publication of law 57-97 on 31 July which transformed the state-run Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Agrí­cola (Bandesa) into a financial institution, capitalised not only by the State but also by civil society groups and also former bank employees. Its main objective was to “promote the economic and social development of rural areas through the stimulus and facilitation of savings, credit services and other financial services to credit unions, NGOs, Guatemalan autochthonous associations (Mayan, Garí­funas, and small size farmers associations); micro, small and medium size entrepreneurs, both directly or indirectly through other legally recognised institutions".

Banrural soon became one of the most successful banks in the country. Its credit portfolio sky-rocketed from US$65m in 1998 to US$660.7m in 2005 while over the same period, profits expanded from US$2.2m to US$25.6m. Along with Agromercantil and Reformador, Banrural was one of three banks to take over the liquidation process of the country's fourth largest bank, Bancafé, in October 2006 after the bank collapsed, following the Refco scandal. In December 2008 Banrural had 568 branches across the country, second only to G&T Continental's 601. According to the latest press release posted on its website (prior to the scandal breaking), Banrural's assets are worth US$3bn; its credit portfolio, US$2bn; and its liabilities, US$2.5bn.

Timeline:

31 July 1997: Publication of law 57-97 establishing Banrural.

1 January 1998: Banrural begins operations.

October 2006: Takes over Bancafé's assets (along with the banks, Agromercantil and Reformador) after Bancafé's collapse.

March 2007: Acquires insurance company Seguros del Paí­s (Sepasa).

September 2007: Acquires finance company Financiera del Paí­s (Fipasa).

December 2007: Becomes a financial group.

11 May 2009: Release of Rosenberg's video in which he accuses Banrural's directors, President Colom, and other senior figures of murder, as well as making a host of allegations involving the bank.

Strengths: Banrural's success has owed in part to its professed aim of “generating a fair profitability_without neglecting its social mission", at the same time as targeting the rural sector. This distinguishes it from other banks in the country. The involvement of the government has also contributed to the bank's financial stability, such that in December 2007, the national monetary board approved Banrural's request to become a financial group (following the acquisition of insurance company, Sepasa and finance company, Fipasa). In a further nod to the bank's management, López was made president of the Guatemalan banking association (ABG) for the period 2008-2009. Banrural also has a sizeable chunk of the remittance market, a key sector in Guatemala (accounting for 9.6% of GDP in 2008); a September 2008 report by the international organisation for migration (OIM) showed that Banrural controls 75% of remittances which pass through the banking system.

Weaknesses: The corruption allegations involving the bank are nothing new; the links between the bank and the government have long attracted criticism, particularly in relation to the social programs of First Lady, Sandra Torres de Colom, also named by Rosenberg in his video as complicit in the plot. Torres heads the social cohesion fund (CSS) a political entity created by Colom to coordinate government activities focused on poverty reduction, which disburses funds through Banrural. The lack of regulation of funds earmarked for the CSS attracted considerable criticism during the process of approving the 2009 budget.
In July 2008, the indigenous and peasant committee, Coordinadora Nacional Indí­gena y Campesina (Conic) demanded that the government stop channelling its funds for social programs through Banrural after it emerged that the bank had failed to disburse more than US$12m in loans for small farmers, authorised by the agriculture ministry.
As regards the current scandal, while the government and the bank reject Rosenberg's allegations, there are nevertheless aspects of his story which would appear to be true and thus arouse suspicion; for example national daily 'Prensa Libre' published documents which included a letter from presidential secretary Gustavo Alejos to López dated 5 January 2009 requesting that Musa be appointed a director of Banrural, as well as a letter sent less than a month later to the economy minister proposing an alternative candidate. The newspaper published correspondence between Musa and Gerardo de León, another figure implicated by Rosenberg, revealing the strained relations between Musa and the Banrural directors; Musa questions why the offer of the Banrural position (which he had not even requested) should have provoked such an uproar. The government and Banrural directors have yet to shed any light on this.

Prospects: With Guatemala yet to fully recover from the instability incurred by the banking crisis which took place less than three years ago, in which two banks, Bancafé and Banco de Comercio went bust, smear campaigns have an added potency and Rosenberg's allegations have already had a negative effect on Banrural. Banking superintendent Edgar Barquí­n said that in less than 48 hours after Rosenberg's murder, some US$62.5m were withdrawn from the bank. Colom told the international press on 21 May that this figure was closer to US$125m, although assured reporters that the crisis was in hand. Both Barquí­n and the president of Guatemala's central bank (Banguat), Marí­a Antonieta de Bonilla, stressed that there were no plans to suspend Banrural's operations.

Ultimately the bank's future and credibility, inexorably bound up with that of Colom, hinges on the investigation into Rosenberg's incendiary accusations. Given the rampant impunity afflicting the country (with 98% of crimes unsolved), and few promising signs so far glimpsed in the investigation, led by UN-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig), a speedy resolution is unlikely.

The powerful private sector organisation Cacif has also demanded that an “independent, international company" carry out an audit of Banrural - a demand which implicitly raises doubts over the capacity of the banking superintendence and attorney general's office to carry out its job.

COLOMBIA | Report says extrajudicial executions are on the rise. On 7 May the Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (Cinep), a Jesuit-linked NGO, released a study which reports that the number of extrajudicial executions had risen in 2010 to 12 cases with 23 victims, from 7 cases with 16 victims in 2009. This has raised the total recorded in Cinep's database since 2001 to 562 cases with 887 victims. These extrajudicial executions are known in Colombia as ‘false positives', a phrase coined to refer to those cases in which the military had passed off murders as deaths of guerrillas killed in combat.

According to Cinep, nowadays, state agents ‘no longer present the victims as members of guerrilla groups, but as persons associated with common crime [or claim that the killings were the result of] operational errors by the public force.'

Cinep expresses concern about the slow pace of judicial investigations into these killings and the poor results obtained. Cinep partly attributes this to the 2010 decline in cooperation between the military and civilian courts. Cinep also draws attention to the fact that members of the military convicted of grave human rights violations are still on active duty.

Attention to ‘false positives' came to the forefront in 2008 with the ‘Soacha case', which involved the disappearance and later murder of 20 youths from Soacha, a suburb of Bogotá, who were presented by the military as guerrillas killed in combat. The Soacha case came to light when now-president Juan Manuel Santos was defence minister.

BOLIVIA | Pledge to increase eradication efforts. In Paris whilst attending the G-8 meeting on the drugs trade, on 10 May, the Bolivian interior minister, Sacha Llorenti, announced that the government of President Evo Morales has set itself a coca eradication target of more than the 8,200 hectares, achieved last year, for 2011. He underlined that Bolivia, after fluctuating results over several years (5,070ha in 2006, 6,268ha in 2007, 5,484ha in 2008, 6,341ha in 2009), had last year increase the eradication area by 29%. The Bolivian government reckons that the area devoted to coca cultivation countrywide is somewhere between 28,000ha and 30,000ha. Of this, only 12,000ha are being legally cultivated under current norms.

Questioned about relations with the US after the 2008 expulsion of the DEA, Llorenti said, ‘We are a country that engages in dialogue and is open to do so with everyone; all we demand is respect for our sovereignty.'

BOLIVIA | Legislating to retain narco assets. On 16 May, Felipe Cáceres, the deputy minister for social defence (in charge of antidrugs policy), said that the government, with assistance from the UN, is working on new legislation that will allow drug traffickers' assets to be seized and sold off quickly, thus increasing the funding of antidrugs efforts. At present, up to 85% of the assets seized from suspected traffickers end up being returned to them.

ECUADOR | Police to be polygraphed. The newly appointed interior minister, José Serrano, announced on 13 May, after swearing in, that henceforth all members of the judicial police will be subjected periodically to polygraph tests. Serrano, previously justice minister, replaced Alfredo Vera, who was dismissed without explanation by President Rafael Correa.

Correa recently challenged Colonel César Carrión, accused of playing a key role in the September 2010 police uprising, to take a polygraph test; a judge dismissed the charges against Carrión (see page 7). Earlier, Correa himself had offered to take a polygraph test to prove that he was telling the truth when he denied that the Colombian Farc guerrillas had contributed to his presidential campaign.

Development: On 30 June port workers in Callao went on strike to protest the concession contract for the Northern Terminal Port of Callao, near Lima. Other port workers have followed suit in solidarity, with some 1,500 workers walking out in total. Separately, protests to demand higher royalties from mining companies began in Puno.

Significance: Puno has been plagued by protests for months. Anti-mining protests recently resulted in five deaths. University-related protests are due to end today (1 July), following an agreement last night. All the protestors complain about a lack of genuine consultation.

Key points:

• The incoming Ollanta Humala government will have to undertake a case-by-case evaluation of some 227 social conflicts, mostly relating  to natural resources.

• Puno is home to both anti- and pro-mining protests. One campaign underway in Lampa, Puno, led by the Frente Amplio de Defensa de los Intereses de Lampa, is demanding a higher percentage of royalties from the ‘Canon Minero' – the fiscal mechanism under which 30% of mining revenues are returned to mining regions. This group says it is in favour of "responsible mining".

• Groups to the south of Puno, however, want a ‘no-mining zone' declared. On 27 June, Canada's Bear Creek Mining Co. had its operations at the Santa Ana mine terminated. Bear Creek is now seeking redress via the Peru-Canada free trade agreement implemented in 2009. Puno lost US$171m during the 45-day paralysis of the southern part of the region.

• The interior ministry has reported that Sendero Luminoso leaflets have being distributed throughout Puno City. The leaflets carried a picture of the group's jailed former leader, Abimael Guzmán, along with a hammer and sickle, stating: "Support the popular war, support the Quechua and Aymara, death to the traitors, long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!"

Development: On 9 May a Guatemala City court acquitted former president Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) on charges of embezzling US$15m in defence funds during his 2000-2004 term of office.

Significance: The acquittal is a major disappointment for the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity (Cicig) which had been heavily involved in efforts to bring Portillo to justice. However, the court's ruling does not mean Portillo walks free. He will remain in prison pending a US extradition request on money laundering charges.

Key points:
• The court voted two to one to absolve Portillo, along with his former defence minister, Eduardo Arévalo Lacs, and former finance minister Manuel Maza Castellanos. As well as dismissing as "insufficient" the evidence provided by the attorney general's office (MP), the court also rejected testimonies from two key witnesses provided by the MP and Cicig on the grounds that they were "fraudulent". The witnesses were José Armando Llort Quiteño and Salomón Abraham Molina Girón, a former director and deputy financial director of the national mortgage bank Crédito Hipotecario Nacional (CHN).

• Attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz has said she will appeal the verdict while Cicig has yet to comment.

• While Arévalo and Maza will be released, Portillo remains in prison after a local appeals court rejected his plea on 30 April against an extradition request from the US in relation to money laundering charges first announced in January 2010.

• Guatemala has yet to convict any of former president charged with corruption and other crimes: those accused include Romeo Lucas (1978-1982), who recently died in exile in Venezuela, and Jorge Serrano (1990-1993), who is in Panama.

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

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

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

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

Reassessing Bolivia's coca  

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

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

Enough, says a report by the comptroller-general's office, to carry out a long-heralded agrarian reform.

If the Colombian government wanted to carry out a far-reaching agrarian reform - which has been much talked about but little acted upon over the past three decades - it could easily do so by seizing and redistributing farmland owned by drug traffickers. The suggestion comes from the comptroller-general's office, attached to heavy criticism of the manner in which the government has so far acted in this respect.

A report by the comptroller-general's office notes that 320,653 hectares of land have been confiscated from drug traffickers. Of these, only 1.74%, some 5,600ha, has been distributed to landless peasants. The total seized, the report notes, is an estimate, as it has been unable to determine the exact size of the farms, the identity of their owners, their commercial value, the current state of the expropriation process, and even which court is handling each case.

Extent of narco holdings
The inefficient handling of seized farmland is not, however, the most important finding of the report. It also estimates that the total surface of farmland owned by drug traffickers is close to 4m ha, or 48% of Colombia's most productive lands, valued at about US$2.4bn. The highest concentration of these properties is in the `coffee axis'; the departments of Caldas, Quindí­o and Risaralda. Other clusters are found in northwestern Antioquia, central Tolima, southwestern Valle del Cauca, and the Caribbean departments of Córdoba, Guajira and Magdalena. All told, the report says, narco-owned farmland is to be found in 40% of the country's municipalities.

Farmland was bought by the drug traffickers as a vehicle for money-laundering (cattle-ranching is ideal, due to the mobility of the main assets, cows), a store of value and, the report says, `a measure of political leadership in the regions where they acquired their farms.'

The comptroller-general's report comes as further evidence on the origins of the paramilitary organisations. These are usually, and euphemistically, said to have been formed initially by farmers, particularly cattle ranchers, to defend themselves against the guerrillas. As we have reported several times in the past, very many of those `farmers' were drug traffickers, interested not only in defending their farms, but also in repelling guerrilla attempts to extort `protection' money from the drugs trade.

`Agree on what you can' is the principle behind a deal that avoids the more confrontational regional trade issues.

The drama many had been expecting had been removed from the FTAA meeting held last week in Miami by the earlier agreement between the US and Brazil to go along with the latter's proposal for a pared-down, `flexible' agreement that simply left out the confrontational areas — agricultural trade for the US; investment, intellectual property and the like for Brazil.

Only a few countries put up some resistance: Canada, Mexico and Chile — those who had already struck free-trade agreements with the US and were unhappy about seeing others gain similar access without making the same kind of concessions.

The formula that has been adopted is simple: negotiation continues in all the areas originally selected, but each country can graduate the extent to which it wants to deal. Access will then be roughly proportional to concessions. Tough unsolved issues will be shunted away to the multilateral arena, under the WTO.

The only concrete target set in Miami is to reach agreement on market access, however graduated, by September next year, so that whatever else has been agreed can be wrapped up in time to meet the original launch deadline of 2005.

The compromise reached in Miami is a long way from the `single undertaking' principle for which Brazil had fought so hard at the beginning of the FTAA process; the rule that `nothing is agreed until everything is agreed'. It is also distant from the `early harvest' alternative proposed by the US: to lock into place each partial agreement as it was achieved. At the time, Brazil got many to share its fear that the US would simply push ahead with its own preferences and leave aside those of others that it did not care for.

Washington's bilateral push
The Miami formula, however, may not be the final face of the FTAA. The US has clearly decided to plough on with its policy of striking bilateral free-trade deals with anyone who is willing. Before the assembled ministers had left Miami, Zoellick had announced that negotiations would be starting on a two-stage agreement with the Andean countries (minus Venezuela): Colombia and Peru first, Ecuador and Bolivia later.

He also announced that negotiating would be stepped up with Panama and the Dominican Republic — the latter with a view to `docking' the deal with Cafta, the free-trade agreement in the making with Central America. So far, the only country in the region to have reached a separate FTA with the US is Chile.

At this rate, the only Latin American countries which would not have a bilateral arrangement with the US would be the four Mercosur partners (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) and Venezuela. Uruguay has already been floating the possibility of seeking a separate FTA, and Argentine President Néstor Kirchner has suggested that Mercosur could seek an agreement as a bloc.

Some US critics have suggested that this approach of successive bilateral deals might conspire against the FTAA, because once countries have secured access bilaterally they will lose interest in a broader deal — indeed, that they may actively oppose it, because it would mean losing an edge over regional competitors.

US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge signed two agreements with his Mexican opposite number, Santiago Creel, during a two-day visit to Mexico last week. The first contains a US promise to study Mexico's demands for `safe, orderly, dignified and humane repatriation' of illegal Mexican migrants. The second is an `action plan' for border security and cooperation.

Within Mexico, it was the former that received most attention: it appeared as a response to Mexico's strong reservations about a US pilot plan which had involved returning illegal migrants at points far from where they had attempted entry. Parts of the second agreement were also welcomed by the business community: the installation of six new secure inspection systems for travellers at San Isidro and Calexico (California), Nogales (Arizona), and El Paso, Laredo and Brownsville (Texas).

This will be complemented by five fast-track crossing channels at Pharr and Brownsville (Texas), Calexico and Otay Mesa (California) and Nogales (Arizona), designed to ensure the security of the traffic in merchandise. Ridge told a business audience in Mexico city that a prime concern of the US was to ensure that the new security precautions did not unnecessarily hold up border crossings. This is being facilitated by the adoption of agreed procedures to identify within Mexico the people and merchandise deemed safe, so the security effort can be better focused on potential threats.

Ridge gained brownie points with his audience by acknowledging the `concern and apprehension' caused by some of the security measures. He said, `Not everything we do makes sense all the time.'

Ridge's visit coincided with an event that demonstrated the extent to which Mexico has become the `outer perimeter' (or, as some wags would have it, the `front porch') of the US. In one swoop, state police in southern Oaxaca intercepted 106 illegal Central American migrants bound for the US, who had already made it through the first containment barrier in Chiapas. The contingent was travelling hidden in a train carrying a cargo of maize.

Tabaré Vázquez, candidate of the left-of-centre Encuentro Progresista-Frente Amplio (EPFA), clearly unfazed by the criticism at home [WR-04-18], has taken his electoral campaign across the river to Buenos Aires, not only meeting business leaders and politicians but also wooing the expatriate vote.

He was taking the message that Uruguay continues to be a welcoming, safe market for their investments to a `working lunch' expected to attract about 400 businessmen. His tone on these subjects has been described as similar to that of Brazilian President Lula da Silva - only Vázquez had been using it long before Lula.

For the expatriates he has organised a gathering modelled on the ones he has been staging in each of Uruguay's departments. His aim: to persuade about 50,000 of them to nip across the River Plate to vote for him on 31 October. At an early-May meeting, Argentine President Néstor Kirchner promised him support for this, even to the extent of seeking to persuade employers to grant Uruguayans leave to make the trip.

President Carlos Mesa has decided to take advantage of the momentum created by his 'victory' in the recent referendum on the future of the oil and gas industry [WR-04-28] and steamroll congress into swift approval of his new hydrocarbons law. He has only revealed the broad outline of the bill; details will follow soon, and it is likely that scrutiny will trigger opposition.

On 30 July, 12 days after the referendum, Mesa announced that he would be submitting to congress a bill which repeals the current hydrocarbons law and introduces new norms which will entail new contracts with the oil and gas companies (he said he hoped they would 'migrate' from the old to the new), the recovery of state ownership of the hydrocarbons 'at the wellhead' and the increase in the fiscal take on oil and gas production to 50%. Thus stated, the bill appears to stitch together elements of several of the questions put to the electorate.

Mesa took pains to underline that the new régime will not entail a 'breach of trust' with respect to the existing contracts, but beyond his talk of 'migration' did not spell out what this means in practice. On a separate tack, Mesa has scheduled talks with Peru and Chile on another referendum issue, that of the export of Bolivian gas via the Pacific.

Market	Index	11.10.04	18.10.04	Variation (%)
Buenos Aires	Merval	1128.74	1228.85	36.20
São Paulo	Bovespa	23969.68	23367.84	-2.51
Santiago	IPSA	1703.44	1700.35	-0.18
Bogotá	IGBC	3643.76	3736.48	2.54
San José	BCT	8503.03	8430.13	-0.86
Quito & Guayaquil	Interinvest	90.60	90.60	0.00
Mexico	BMV	10946.11	10991.43	0.41
Lima	ISVBL	3361.88	3430.58	2.04
Caracas	BC	30717.89	30873.49	0.51
Source: Daily market reports.

A number of US legislators and commentators have taken up arms against a small Mexican government booklet which advises would-be emigrants of the dangers they might encounter on their passage if they try to enter the US illegally. They say that the publication tacitly gives Mexican-government approval to the practice of illegal migration.

The Guí­a del Migrante Mexicano, published in comic-book format, was released in December and distributed in the states from which most of Mexico's emigrants come. It provides advice for legal emigrants, and, acknowledging that some will try to cross the border illegally, includes tips on how to do so safely (avoid rivers and deserts, be wary of people traffickers) and how to act if detained by US authorities. The US government has been well aware for some time about the Mexican government's campaign to prevent deaths among illegal emigrants, on the increase since the traffic has shifted to less monitored but more dangerous stretches of the border [WR-04-28]. Indeed, both countries have discussed the measures each was taking to cope with the problem.

The furore was a product of the year-end 'silly season' in the media: a US journalist 'discovered' the booklet when news was slow, and hyped it enough to attract commentary. Few of those involved in dealing with illegal immigration - including officials of the US Border Patrol - believe that the booklet will actually encourage more people to cross. As a Mexican consular official cited in one press report quipped, 'A guide to the dangers that you'll encounter in the Middle East is not going to encourage [Americans to go there].'

Two leaders of the armed gangs of former soldiers, Remissainthe Ravix and René Jean Anthony, were killed in shootouts with combined forces of the national and UN police over the past weekend. The interim government had offered rewards for both of them, who were wanted for the murder of several police officers [WR-05-13].

Ravix and Anthony (alias Grenn Sonnen) had not been driven underground by the arrest warrants and rewards; they circulated quite openly in Delmas, an industrial district of Port-au-Prince. When the police raided Delmas on 9 April they soon located Ravix: he was shot when he resisted arrest. Anthony was reported killed in another shootout the following day.

Some of Ravix's followers, based in the Central Plateau, had vowed to take reprisals if their leader were arrested or killed. Soon after news of his death was announced, a UN spokesman, Daniel Moskaluk, said that a number of these ex-soldiers had been reported on their way to the capital. 'We anticipate further problems with this group,' he said.

Anthony had been accused of involvement in the killing of two other policemen in March and of several attacks on police and government premises. Government officials speculated that these were intended to 'destabilise' Haiti and prevent elections. The fact that the raids on Delmas were conducted jointly by the UN and the national police appears to confirm that they have overcome their differences - though few journalists failed to notice that after both episodes the national police rushed to claim the coups as their own, and only later did UN spokesmen reveal that their own police contingent had been involved.

The split in the ranks of the ruling Partido Justicialista (PJ) is now being described as 'irreversible' by most local analysts. Certainly they seem likely to last until after October's legislative elections. Right now, President Néstor Kirchner appears to have gained the upper hand, attracting the support of most of the PJ provincial governors and that of an old enemy who has taken over the umbrella labour confederation, the CGT.

Kirchner has been outlining a grand theory of what is happening. 'A cycle has ended for Peronism,' he told an assembly of newspaper editors last week. 'What we desire is an advance towards a system with two, or eventually three, forces - but in which left and right are clearly defined.' He has privately said that the model he imagines is similar to that seen in Chile, with a left-of-centre coalition (in the case of Argentina, his own) and a right-of-centre one (not too precisely defined in the Argentine case). In this scenario, smaller parties are left without congressional representation. The one thing that does not fit into such a scenario is the PJ in its traditional format (meaning his rival, former president Eduardo Duhalde).

Many of the lists of candidates for the October elections have been vetted by Kirchner himself, most carefully in the case of Buenos Aires province, the main battlefield with the pro-Duhalde camp. He has ensured the participation of traditional Peronists and also some from the leftwing fringes and the participants in the Frente Grande of yore, headed by former vice-president Chacho Alvarez. The unions have been assured of a third of the posts.

Part of Kirchner's strategy was to strike a deal with a former adversary, Carlos Moyano, until last week a member of the triumvirate which had been governing the CGT for the past year. Kirchner's goal was to bring together the three main factions of organised labour. Last week Moyano staged a coup, taking over the sole leadership of the CGT. One of his first high-profile acts was to drop in for a chat with Kirchner. Behind this move was the fact that the unions with the largest memberships, known as the gordos ('the fat ones'), represented within the triumvirate by Susana Rueda, had thrown in their lot with the Duhalde camp.

There has been much talk that the alliance with the former Frente Grande crowd might be sealed by appointing Alvarez foreign minister when the incumbent, Rafael Bielsa, steps down to run for an assured seat in the lower chamber representing the federal capital. Bielsa's deputy, Jorge Taiana, will also be resigning to run for a seat as deputy for Buenos Aires province. Yet another top-level vacancy will be created by Defence Minister José Pampuro, who will be running for a seat in the senate on the ticket headed by Kirchner's wife, Cristina Fernández. Pampuro used to be a staunch supporter (and close friend) of Duhalde.

There are those who question whether Kirchner's success in 'buying over' the allegiance of former rivals is a solid enough foundation for the new political model he envisages. Allegiances that have shifted once could well do so again, as the provincial governors have often shown in the past - and Kirchner's model would require legislation that might threaten the powerbases of many local leaders.

Worth noting: Socialist congressman Jorge Rivas filed an expected suit before an electoral court in the province of Buenos Aires on 11 July challenging the validity of two rival Peronist lists of candidates as unconstitutional [WR-05-26].

 

Accusations of 'vote-buying' have been flung against each other by both factions of the ruling Partido Justicialista (PJ) contending for the biggest electoral prize, the province of Buenos Aires. The extra-PJ opposition has pounced upon this as an opportunity to claw back some of the attraction these two actors have been exerting on the electorate. The broad drift, however, seems to be favouring President Néstor Kirchner.

The vote-buying charges, initially floated against the pro-Kirchner camp in September, were revived on 4 October by the newspaper La Nación together with similar accusations against the faction led by former president Eduardo Duhalde.

The initial allegation was that the government was handing out electrical appliances to poor families in the Greater Buenos Aires area. That this was actually happening has been confirmed by the mayor of Berazategui, Juan José Mussi - who says he didn't report it to the judiciary because he was unable to determine who the donor was. The left-of-centre Alternativa para una República Igualitaria (ARI), led by Elisa Carrió, pointed the finger at Social Development Minister Alicia Kirchner, the President's sister.

The government has chosen the path of 'non-denial denial'. Interior Minister Alberto Fernández has dismissed the charges as 'phenomenal nonsense'. President Kirchner said he had no personal knowledge of any vote-buying incidents 'and would report any if [he] did'.

The Duhalde camp has been accused of handing out cheques of US$100 to US$170 from the provincial senate in Buenos Aires to the poor neighbourhoods of the urban belt around the capital. Though Hilda González (Duhalde's wife, who heads the PJ's list of candidates) protested that neither she nor her husband should be implicated in such actions, the senators involved noted that by law they enjoy the prerogative of making direct grants (which is true) and that the current handouts had nothing to do with the elections (which few found credible).

The charges were considered very plausible by the heads of three well-known think-tanks: the Centro de Estudios de la Opinión Pública, Centro de Estudios Polí­ticos Poliarquí­a and Centro de Estudios Nueva Mayorí­a. Rosendo Fraga, director of the latter, noted that with 38.5% of the population under the poverty line and 13.6% indigent, 'political clientelism is considerably enhanced'.

In any case, these experts believe that the two PJ factions will jointly attract somewhere between 65% and 70% of the vote, with the pro-Kirchner camp in the lead. They note that the third PJ faction, led by former President Carlos Menem, appears to have lowered its profile markedly following poor performance in the polls. 

The kirchneristas are confident that they will resoundingly defeat the duhaldistas in Buenos Aires province, but are unsure whether this will trigger a definitive split in the ranks of the PJ or, as many times in the past, a regrouping around the victor. One political commentator, Isidoro Gilbert, has gone out on a limb and suggested that these elections could spell 'the end of bipartisan politics' in Argentina.

 

The Zapatista leader 'Marcos', who now insists on being called 'Delegate Zero', may end up providing the only colour in what is unfolding as an uninspiring presidential campaign. As frontrunner Andrés Manuel López Obrador seeks to win over the middle classes and businessmen, and runner-up Felipe Calderón struggles to find a way of conveying how he might improve on Vicente Fox's performance, Marcos/Zero has set out on a tour of the country to advocate a boycott of the elections.

López Obrador chose the occasion of his registration as a candidate and a recorded TV interview to maintain some kind of a presence during the year-end political 'truce' period (11 December to 18 January) and try out some of his new messages. 'We are seeking equilibrium in everything,' he told his interviewer. This has translated into reiterating his attacks on Fox's 'neoliberalism' while reassuring the public that he will not swing back the pendulum all the way to the previous state-dominated arrangement, and stating that his model in the economic Arena is Chile, presumably as Ricardo Lagos has been running it. This tone is clearly intended to counter his rivals' constant attacks on his 'populist' record as mayor of Mexico City.

López Obrador said he would not become too personally involved in foreign affairs, but also strongly criticised Fox for not having responded strongly enough to the US 'border wall' and the shooting of an illegal Mexican immigrant [WR-06-01]. He then added: 'I want to underline that we will conduct a measured foreign policy, without becoming antagonistic.'

Calderón is expected to add to his repertoire following the incorporation in to his team of Josefina Vázquez Mota, who on 6 January resigned as social development minister, a position she has held since the beginning of the Fox administration. Vázquez has converted from espousing the view that growth and good macroeconomic policies would roll back poverty, to a far more interventionist approach to poverty reduction. This, plus Vázquez's countrywide recognition as the administrator of the government's social largesse, is expected to counter his rivals' contention that Calderón only promises more of the same.

Marcos/Zero, for his part, has been making his way through Chiapas in the first leg of his tour promoting what he calls 'the other campaign'. His main message is that efforts should not be wasted on campaigning or any of the candidates now running, as they all represent 'no change'. Instead, he advocates the formation of a broad leftist front to press for a thorough reform of Mexico's constitution (details still to come). In Tuxtla Gutiérrez he appealed to a group of supporters of López Obrador's Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) to abandon their candidate who, he said, no longer represents the left. In a poor district of San Cristóbal de las Casas he urged a gathering of evangelical Indians to abandon the ranks of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which he described as 'composed of pure rogues, murderers and liars, from Roberto Madrazo down to those below who are organising the people'.

In Palenque, in northern Chiapas, about 5,000 Indians gathered to hear him warn the government and local ranchers not to try to interfere with his countrywide tour, and to insist that electoral campaigning was pointless. Of the presidential candidates he said: 'We think they will not give us anything that we do not conquer with our own effort.' Marcos is travelling unarmed in a 20-vehicle convoy, still wearing his trademark ski mask.

Briefings by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, reports in the US press and accusations in the Cuban government-controlled media all concur in predicting that people trafficking - the smuggling of illegal immigrants into the US - has been increasing the tightening of US border controls, and is likely to expand even more with the legislation now pending. Cuban and Mexican sources agree that in at least one Mexican state, government officials are involved in the trade.

Cuban accusations increased after a 5 April incident in which a go-fast boat was intercepted on the coast of Pinar del Rí­o as it sought to smuggle 43 people out of the island. Two Cuban-American members of the crew were wounded by gunfire; the owner of the craft was identified as a Cuban resident in Miami and the authorities were able to determine that the boat had been used on several previous runs.

The official newspaper Granma reported on 6 April on the growing traffic of Cubans to the US through Cancún, Isla Mujeres and other locations in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, in the peninsula of Yucatán. The report said that those involved included Cuban boatmen, Mexican fishermen, 'authorities of that Mexican state and elements of the anti-Cuban mafia resident in that place, with connections in Miami'.

Randy Alonso, the well-known presenter of the TV talk show Mesa Redonda, claimed on 7 April that recent cases had revealed ' the existence of criminal networks devoted to people trafficking in the south of Florida and the state of Quintana Roo, admitted by the authorities of both states'. 

Disclaimer and refutation

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez promptly stated that there was no evidence pointing to the existence of a people trafficking network using Mexico as a conduit to smuggle migrants into the US. He was almost immediately refuted by Pedro Ramí­rez, delegate in Quintana Roo of the federal chief prosecutor's office, the PGR. He noted that the Cubans who were arriving on the coast of Yucatán bore none of the signs of the shipwrecked boat people fleeing Cuba on their own: dehydration, poor physical condition and the like. He told the newspaper Reform: 'We are concerned and on the lookout because we see that this is becoming a constant [factor]. It is already a very frequent occurrence which should alert all of us.'

The Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) reports that in the December-February running quarter, 757 undocumented Cuban migrants were arrested in Mexico, compared with 486 in the previous quarter.

Derbez was refuted even more vehemently by Laura Susana Martí­nez, a high-ranking official at Quintana Roo's Comisión de Derechos Humanos (the rights ombudsman's office). On 8 April she said: 'It is immigration agents and officials who control the illegal traffic of Cuban balseros in Cancún [through] an intricate web of collusion with the traffickers, whom they provide with logistical support, transport and protection, in exchange for substantial sums of money.' She pointed the finger at the Cancún office of the INM and said that those higher up have been told of this repeatedly (and indeed removed the previous INM delegate as a result of these reports).

At the Cuban end

Cuban sources say the people traffickers charge US$8,000 to US$12,000 for the boat trip out of the island. It is not clear if this fee also includes, on the Mexican route, the arrangements for the onward journey and entry to the US. The Cuban authorities reported that last year 42 people died attempting to leave the island by sea, 67 people traffickers were arrested (mostly Cubans and Mexicans) and 26 boats were seized. So far this year, 18 people have died in the attempt and 13 go-fast boats have been seized.

In the final stretch of the sea route, the US Coast Guard last year intercepted about 2,600 Cuban migrants at sea. This is the highest figure on record since the huge exodus of raft people in 1994 when 37,000 were intercepted.

The land border

ICE officials who have been looking into the money trail associated with people trafficking say that this has become a business moving about US$10bn a year, not quite in the same league as drug trafficking but enough to have made some people millionaires in a few years, as recent court cases in Texas have proven.

They say that the fees charged by the traffickers have risen fourfold or more over the past decade, to about US$1,200-$1,300 per person. The increase in illegal border crossing has also benefited others not directly involved in people trafficking. The most notable example has been that of the air carriers ferrying people to jump-off points close to the border. In the case of Hermosillo, in Sonora, incoming flights have multiplied astronomically over the past decade from only 20 a week to about 500.

Secondary exploitation

People trafficking has also spawned a secondary strand of criminal activity, sometimes involving the self-same traffickers seeking a second bite at the cherry. This involves kidnapping migrants once they have been guided across the border and holding them for ransom: according to sources with the local Beta group (official agents devoted to minimising the risks facing those determined to cross), demands to the families of the migrants range from US$500 apiece for Mexicans to US$7,000 for those from other Latin American countries.

That is the most sophisticated way of preying on the migrants. They also run the risk of being mugged as they embark on a dangerous crossing or as they reach the other side. This secondary exploitation of migrants has given birth to a new lexicon. The muggers are called tumbadores or bajadores; the kidnapping of a party of immigrants is a levantón. 

Beta group agents say that in many cases the kidnappers or muggers are either the very polleros who guide the migrants across, or are closely associated with them. In others, they are small-scale drug traffickers who are familiar with the clandestine crossborder routes. There have been cases of rival gangs engaging in shootouts over parties of migrants targeted for a levantón.

The demand for the services of the people traffickers runs high. According to Humane Borders (or Fronteras Compasivas), a US-based NGO devoted to assisting migrants in danger along hazardous entry routes, about 480,000 people attempt the crossing every year.

Aware of the risk posed by the criminals who prey on the migrants, Robin Hoover of Humane Borders says: 'There should be [Mexican] federal police officers along the whole border to stop those bands. The Mexican government has a great deal of responsibility for this.'