Abigail Poe
The Obama Administration has not announced its appointments for important Latin America-focused posts, including assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere affairs, or National Security Council senior director on Latin America. However, that does not stop the speculation. Foreign Policy magazine's The Cable blog has been a frequent source of the latest rumors. Here are their speculations about who might get these top Latin America jobs.
Today, Colombian and Bolivian newspapers covered the release of a new report by the International Narcotics Control Board of the United Nations.
On Sunday, President Hugo Chávez bolstered his "mandate" in Venezuela when the "Yes" vote triumphed in a referendum to lift constitutional limits on presidential and political terms - despite the failure of a referendum that included the same question only a year ago.
Today, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy presented its main findings on the limits and unwanted effects of the 'war on drugs' in Latin America over the past 30 years. The Commission was headed by former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), César Gaviria (Colombia), and Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico) and includes 17 independent members.
Increasingly, major U.S. news sources are covering the rapidly spreading violence in Mexico's border towns and throughout the country. Today, it made the front page of the Washington Post after a Mexican general, along with his bodyguard and his driver, was tortured and killed in Cancun last week.
While last week we speculated about what would happen if the drug cartels in Mexico actually reached a truce, this week's news coverage on Mexico remains grim. According to El Universal, 508 people were killed in drug-related violence in January 2009 alone - more than double the amount of deaths in January 2008.
Recently, the growing presence of Russia and Iran in Latin America - especially in left-wing governments such as Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia - has elicited some concern in the United States. Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave his opinion on Russia and Iran's role in Latin America at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on challenges the Defense Department faces.
At the end of July 2008, Ecuador formally notified the United States that it will not renew the United States' ten-year agreement to use the Manta air base as a "Forward Operating Location" when it expires in November 2009. The United States has therefore "officially" known of the need to find a new location for the air base for six months and "unofficially" has been aware of its potential closing since Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's election in 2006.
On the first full day of President Barack Obama's administration, newspapers throughout Latin America reported on the fanfare of the inauguration, the historical significance of the swearing in of the United States' first African-American president and the challenges that he must immediately confront. A few articles used the occasion to look at the future of U.S. policy toward the region and/or specific countries.
Yesterday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held its hearing to confirm Senator Hillary Clinton's nomination as the Obama administration's Secretary of State. During the hearing, Clinton focused on such topics as the conflicts in the Middle East, energy independence, and more mundane issues like potential conflicts of interest with Bill Clinton's international foundation.