Links from the past week

09/06/10
Latin America and the Caribbean
Security, U.S. Policy, Human Rights
Amid a barrage of grim security news, Mexican President Felipe Calderón delivers his annual state of the union address.
  • The State Department certified on Friday that Mexico’s human rights performance is improving, freeing up $36 million in assistance to the Mexican armed forces that had, by law, been put on hold. Citing continued human rights concerns, however, State froze another $26 million in assistance that had been appropriated through separate, supplemental budget appropriations. Meanwhile the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that the Obama administration is considering “a substantial spending increase on the Mexican drug war” as a successor to the $1.6 billion “Mérida Initiative.”
  • Amid a week marked by the arrest of top Beltrán Leyva cartel figure “La Barbie” and an Army firefight that reportedly killed 27 “Zetas,” Mexican President Felipe Calderón gave his annual state of the union speech. The President acknowledged that drug-related violence is worsening, citing cartels as “the central threat” to Mexico, but calling on Mexicans to stay the course and “battle on.” On the BBC website, analyst Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez asserts that drug-related violence has gone through two distinct “waves” since early 2008, each one following the takedown of a key narco figure. The Guardian, meanwhile, has a 3-part series by Rory Carroll about people affected by, or involved in, the violence in the U.S. border zone.
  • A “legislative decree” issued by Peruvian President Alán García, which went into effect last Wednesday, would close cases against human rights violators (a) whose offenses occurred before 2003, and (b) whose cases have gone on for over 3 years. Human rights groups warn that the decree could result in freedom for jailed abusers like ex-President Alberto Fujimori; his former intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos; and members of the “La Colina” death squad.
  • Ángela María Buitrago, a star prosecutor in Colombia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía), was abruptly fired last week. She was managing several high-profile cases:
    • that of three generals accused of sanctioning the killing a Supreme Court justice during the 1985 Palace of Justice tragedy;
    • that of Jorge Noguera, Álvaro Uribe’s first chief of presidential intelligence (DAS), accused of conspiring with paramilitaries and narcotraffickers to kill human rights defenders and political opponents;
    • that of Guillermo Valencia Cossio, the chief prosecutor of Medellín (and brother of recently departed Interior Minister Fabio Valencia Cossio), accused of working with paramilitary narcotrafficker “Don Mario”;
    • that of Senator Ciro Ramírez, accused of working with narcotraffickers and paramilitaries; and
    • slander charges against former Vice President Francisco Santos and former presidential adviser José Obdulio Gaviria, who accused labor union leaders of working with the FARC.

    With prosecutor Buitrago suddenly gone from these cases – many of which had advanced significantly – their future is in doubt. The firing should make it very difficult for the U.S. State Department to certify that Colombia is improving its ability to try human rights cases – as it is expected to do this month to free up military aid currently “on hold.”

  • A cover story in the Colombian newsmagazine Semana discusses the Santos government’s surprisingly ambitious land-reform plans. Legislation to be introduced in Congress is likely to include the return of 2 million hectares of land – an area nearly the size of El Salvador – to victims; the seizure and distribution of up to 800,000 hectares of land from narcotraffickers; the titling of 1.2 million small landholdings; an effort to collect property taxes for the first time; and a reduction, by half, of the amount of land dedicated to cattle ranching. This proposal, while absolutely crucial to peace, will be likely to face some stiff resistance – political and perhaps violent – from sectors of Colombia that, in fact, have supported President Santos and his predecessor, Álvaro Uribe.
  • Colombia’s VerdadAbierta (open truth) website has put together a very impressive multimedia presentation about the Montes de María, a region near Colombia’s Caribbean coast that has lived through three decades of land struggles, guerrilla activity, narcotrafficking and, ten years ago, an extremely brutal paramilitary takeover.
  • Following an ambush that killed 14 policemen in Caquetá department, Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera ruled out any possibility of peace talks with the FARC guerrillas. His sentiments were echoed in even stronger terms by armed forces chief Adm. Édgar Cely. The civil-society group Colombians for Peace, whose most visible member is Senator Piedad Córdoba, made clear its “absolute rejection” of the FARC attack, in which the guerrillas incinerated the bodies of the dead. President Juan Manuel Santos is reportedly seeking a legal change that would prohibit any future demilitarization of territory to hold peace talks, as took place in failed 1998-2002 talks with the FARC.
  • Santos paid his first foreign visit as president of Colombia: to Brazil, where he met with President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and both major candidates for Brazil’s October 3 presidential elections. Santos appeared determined to discourage any Brazilian initiatives to foster peace in Colombia. “Our problem with the FARC is an internal Colombian problem,” he said. “We have asked that the fact that it is an internal Colombian problem be respected. … Brazil can always collaborate when we think that they can and should.” Santos also called on Brazil to formally declare the FARC a terrorist group. Opposition candidate José Serra, who is trailing in the polls, pledged to do that.
  • An article in Peru’s La República gives a very hazy account of a marine patrol on the Amazon river that came under attack Saturday by a group of about 90 uniformed men on the Colombian side of the river. Five people may have died; local authorities blame the FARC while the police blame narco gangs.
  • The FARC made its presence felt on the Ecuador-Colombia border, distributing flyers in the Ecuadorian border town of Lago Agrio and, on the Colombian side, holding a press conference of sorts for Ecuadorian reporters. A 48th Front spokesman, who went by the name “Raúl Ruiz,” denied that the guerrilla group was responsible for the shooting death of an Ecuadorian soldier, just across the border from Colombia, in August.
  • A poll published by the Venezuelan daily El Nacional showed 77 percent of Venezuelans responding that they would vote in the September 26 elections for a new legislature. Of those, 34 percent would vote for members of the party supporting President Hugo Chávez, and 42 percent would vote for opposition parties. In public statements, Chávez called the opposition “the most rotten bunch that Venezuela’s political history has produced” and warned that if they get a majority of the Congress, they will “carry out a coup, like in Honduras.”
  • In Chile, about 35 imprisoned Mapuche Indians have been on a hunger strike for nearly 60 days. After vandalizing and destroying property during a land dispute, the indigenous prisoners were tried before a military court for “terrorism” under a Pinochet-era law. The government of Sebastián Piñera is promising to reform the law – though the right wing of its coalition wants to keep it in place – and wants the Catholic church to serve as a mediator.
  • In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega and another top security official criticized U.S. security assistance for being too stingy. Ortega referred to the roughly $2 million per year (not counting additional Defense Department aid) as “centavos.” Days later, at a speech commemorating the Nicaraguan Army’s 31st anniversary, Ortega called U.S. intelligence agencies “strategists of evil,” prompting U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan to get up and leave the room. On the security issue, incidentally: Nicaragua’s La Prensa reports that the country today has 11,000 police and 13,000 private security guards.
  • Argentina’s defense minister, Nilda Garré, declared that Argentina would increase its defense budget by 50 percent “in coming years.”
  • The armed forces of Colombia, Honduras and the United States carried out a three-day counternarcotics exercise in the Caribbean, near the Colombian island of San Andrés.