Friday news highlights

01/30/10
Latin America and the Caribbean

COLOMBIA

  • President Álvaro Uribe proposed to fight gang violence in Medellín by paying the city's students to serve as informants passing intelligence to the authorities.
  • Three U.S. senators on committees with jurisdiction over U.S. aid to Colombia sent a letter (PDF) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The letter calls for the United States to "reevaluate U.S. assistance to Colombia."
  • A mass grave containing an estimated 2,000 bodies was recently discovered outside of La Macarena, about 200 miles south of Bogotá. According to the Center for International Policy's Plan Colombia and Beyond blog, "Residents say that after it entered the strongly guerrilla-controlled zone in the mid-2000s, Colombia's Army began dumping unidentified bodies in a mass grave near a local cemetery."
  • In President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday, strengthening trade relations with both Colombia and Panama was mentioned as a goal. However, last week U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield warned that trade agreements never win approval in legislative election years. Colombian Ambassador to the United States Carolina Barco told El Tiempo that Obama's mention of Colombia "is very positive.... We are optimistic that this backing will help us continue on the road to approval of the FTA. However, we must be patient."

HAITI

  • A USA Today/Gallup poll finds 63% of Americans favoring a longer-term U.S. military presence in Haiti, going beyond the emergency phase until "basic services are restored." Meanwhile the Pentagon estimates that most U.S. troops will pull out of Haiti within three to six months.

HONDURAS

  • Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya left the Brazilian Embassy on Wednesday, where he had been holed up since sneaking back into Honduras in September. Zelaya flew to the Dominican Republic as Pepe Lobo was sworn in as the country's new president. The inauguration ceremony was attended by a U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela.
  • On Thursday, the new administration announced that the nation is bankrupt and has only about $50 million in government coffers after months of isolation and cutoffs of international aid. U.S. assistance to Honduras, frozen after the coup d'etat in June, will not start flowing until all of the points in the Tegucigalpa-San José Accord are met, including the formation of a national unity government and a truth commission. Honduras' return to the Organization of American States is also contingent on compliance with the Tegucigalpa-San José Accord. According to Assistant Secretary Valenzuela, Lobo "has put together a broad Cabinet, including even candidates who ran against him. What is pending is the last step, which is the truth commission."

COLOMBIA-VENEZUELA

  • The Colombian government has accused a Venezuelan military helicopter of violating their airspace for 20 minutes, as it flew over a Colombian army base on Wednesday. The Venezuelan government denies this charge, and has accused the Colombian government of lying. According to Venezuelan Minister of Defense Nicolás Maduro, the accusation is part of a "dirty, brutal and hateful campaign against the Venezuelan people and the President to incite disdainful feelings against our country, framed in a policy that attempts to start events to justify violent acts, to make our peaceful border more violent."

VENEZUELA

  • Last weekend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez removed the television station RCTV from cable television. The government said that RCTV was not abiding by government regulations that require broadcasters to televise the President Chávez's speeches in their entirety. Critics, including the Washington Office on Latin America, claim the "suspension of RCTV-International in particular gives every appearance of being the result of a deliberate strategy on the part of the government to use the regulatory system to stifle an especially outspoken critic."

ENTIRE REGION