2009 in Review
2009 marked the Obama administration's first year, and proved to be a very eventful year in Latin America. Below is a list of significant U.S. policy and security events in Latin America in 2009. January: Barack Obama is inaugurated as the United States' first African-American president and hope for a new era of U.S.-Latin America relations is apparent throughout the region. February: Colombia's newsweekly, Semana, revealed that the Administrative Security Department (DAS), the Colombian Presidency's internal intelligence agency, had been carrying out a campaign of wiretaps and surveillance of human rights defenders, Supreme Court justices, opposition politicians, and journalists. DAS agents also followed their targets' children, wives, and assistants. Over the course of 2009, new evidence continued to emerge. April: Heads of state from the region came together in Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. President Obama addressed his counterparts and promised a new partnership between the United States and Latin America: "I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values." June: Mauricio Funes was sworn in as president of El Salvador, marking the historic end of the conservative ARENA party's two-decade rule and the historic beginning of the leftist Farabundo Marti Liberation Front's (FMLN) first attempt at the presidency. June: After much speculation on where the United States planned to relocate the soon-to-be-closed Forward Operating Location at the Manta Air Base in Ecuador, the Colombian press announced the ongoing negotiation of a deal between the United States and Colombia, under which the United States would be granted use of seven Colombian military bases. The media speculation was confirmed in July when Colombia's defense, interior and foreign relations ministers gave a press conference about the military base deal with the United States. At the end of October, the final deal had been signed between the two countries, which was dubbed the "Defense Cooperation Agreement." June: On the 28th of June, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was forcibly removed from his home by Honduran troops, following orders from the country's Supreme Court, and flown to Costa Rica in his pajamas. The world immediately spoke up to condemn the coup and called for the return of the democratically-elected president. September: Ecuador officially closed the United States Forward Operating Location at the Manta Air Base. November: Presidential elections were held in Honduras, and the National Party's Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo was victorious. At the time of the elections (and still today) the Western Hemisphere was split on whether to recognize the elections even though the de facto government, led by Roberto Micheletti, remained in power. December: Drug-related violence in Mexico reached record levels in 2009 - with an estimated 7,300 drug-related murders by the end of November. In 2008, there were approximately 5,600 such murders. Other stories that took place throughout the year:
- Increased arms purchases in the region fuel fears of a South American arms race.
- Iran's influence in Latin America received much attention within the U.S. government
- The debate on drug policy reemerged over the course of the year, with the publication of "Drugs and Democracy: Toward a Paradigm Shift," and the introduction of two bills in Congress aimed to reevaluate U.S. drug policy domestically and as it relates to Latin America, one of which (H.R. 2134, "Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission Act of 2009") was passed by the House of Representatives in early December.