Colombia

ColombiaPress ReleasesVenezuela
COHA

The Blitz is On

Part I
The Colombia Card is Being Played, with Chávez Scheduled to be Taken to the Cleaner. Meanwhile, Rice heads today to Medellin with Democratic legislators in tow, to win approval of controversial FTA with Bogotá

• A prime weapon in the U.S. inventory to reduce Chávez to size, and build up Colombia’s President Uribe, is a recent government-funded report produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which claims that the South American nation, Colombia, is safely “back from the brink of crisis.” But in terms of its conceptualization and implementation, the contracted document and the campaign surrounding its publication raises serious questions. These include the conservative organization’s objectivity due to its longtime advocacy of Plan Colombia, and its vigorous support of the pending free trade pact with Bogotá.

• The CSIS Colombia project is more about being part of a well-timed public relations campaign than about bona fide research.

• The CSIS report represents an important component in the lobbying effort by Bogotá and the Bush administration to convince Capitol Hill to approve the pending Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, and is based as much on half truths and strategic omissions as it is on value-neutral research.

• If anything, it could be argued that Colombia’s prospects for modernization and stability and its credentials as a voracious foe of regional drug trafficking have at best stagnated, and at worst have suffered grave attrition, under the Uribe administration. The discarding of extradition for demobilized paramilitaries is an example of this.

• Uribe is lionized by State Department, but is a doubly tainted figure

• The Bush administration relates a fading tale to Democrats over Colombia’s demure virtues

Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, on her way to Medellin, Colombia today, leading a delegation of ten Democratic House members, has the mission of rewarding one of Latin America’s most hardline leaders who has had direct links to some of the country’s most prominent right-wing death squad leaders and has indirectly sanctified the possible assassination of prominent labor and human rights leaders, even though U.S. legislators are well aware of the impunity for such crimes that exist.

In spite of multiple legislative delegation that have been ferried to Colombia and several trips of Uribe to Washington, the Congressional leadership remains unconvinced that President Uribe is not the soaring paladin of democracy as the Bush administration tries to present him.

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ColombiaMexicoPress Releases
COHA

Does the Merida Initiative represent a New Direction for U.S.-Mexico Relations, or Does It Simply Refocus the Issue Elsewhere?

  • Help for Mexico: the U.S. plan to support Calderon’s counter-narcotic initiative criticized for its secrecy, its assumptions, and its questionable evidence.
  • Washington is encouraged to tackle the deadly magnitude of illicit U.S. weapons sales to Mexico and the mechanisms of supply and demand, as drug consumption rises in the country in spite of U.S. claims to the contrary.
  • A redirection in policy could lead to a potentially problematic future, with dire results produced by U.S. drug policy and featuring Washington’s politicalization of the issue and inventing facts where none exist.

The ‘Merida Initiative’ Proposal
In a nation where drug kingpins have infiltrated many state and local governments, and where infighting among drug traffickers has cost more than 4,000 lives in the past 22 months—most of them Mexican—the latter country’s drug cartels have been engaged in a brutal drug war at the very time that they were seeking new trade routes, competing over prices, and hunting down new markets. To tackle this growing ring of violence, Washington has announced a $500 million aid package for Mexico in 2008 (part of an overall 3 year program, all-told to be budgeted at $1.4 billion). Titled ‘Merida Initiative,’ the newly-minted campaign is meant to help combat the trans-border war on drugs, fight organized crime, and counter terrorism throughout Mexico and Central America.

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COHA

Sulfurous Fumes Detected over Guyana: Latin America’s Ominous New Geopolitical Scene Involving Georgetown, Washington and Caracas

To Our Readers

Today, December 14, 2007, from 12:45 to 2:00pm COHA Director, Larry Birns, will Appear on the Fox Business Channel from Washington to Discuss the Bank of the South and other U.S.-Latin American Trade Matters

With much of Latin America demonstrating a decisively distinct air of autonomous behavior when it comes to responding to U.S. regional policy initiatives, Guyana appears to want to emphasize that it should not be counted in their number. A high-level security conference between the U.S. and Guyana was kicked off on Tuesday December 11, just after the recent revival of a long simmering territorial dispute between Guyana and the Bush Administration’s arch nemesis, Venezuela. The conference was organized by the Guyana Defense Force and the U.S. Embassy’s Military Liaison Office, and is being held against a backdrop of heightened tension between Venezuela and Guyana over the November 15 incident in which the Guyanese government claims that Venezuelan soldiers used explosives and helicopters to destroy two dredges along the Cuyuni River. The Venezuelan government maintains that it was doing nothing more than expelling illegal miners from Venezuelan territory.

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BrazilColombiaPress ReleasesVenezuela
COHA

Bank of the South: Another step toward Latin American integration

  • Member countries analyze the proposal as Banco del Sur (Bank of the South) is about to be launched
  • Lula, while skeptical, is moving ahead
  • Dealing with the opposition to the Bank
  • Not a Chávez-controlled institution, but one aimed at development and integration, infrastructure loans and aiding each other’s investment requirements

Since coming to power in 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez may have been seen as a controversial figure, universally known for his confrontational stance regarding U.S. foreign policy aims. However, his zeal for social reform, promotion of Latin American integration and his unquestionable good will toward other nations will reach a high-water mark on Sunday, December 9, 2007, when the Bank of the South will be formally launched.

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ColombiaEcuadorPress ReleasesVenezuela
COHA

Is the “New Left” Simply More of the Same, or a New Political Force in Latin America?

  • South American leftward shift here to stay?
  • Latin Business Chronicle's malpracticing prescription
  • Chávez is very different from Morales and Correa, though they all may face similar challenges.
  • What does the Uribe-Chávez flap portend?

The rise of what some call the "New Left" in Latin America has become an increasingly hot topic over the last decade. But what does it really signify for the hemisphere? While some claim that these left-leaning nations reflect just an aberrant phase in the democratization process, others insist that this development is leading to the very embodiment of enhanced freedom, where citizens have the opportunity for their voice to be heard, an education as well as a job paying a living wage. The New Left movement seems to be taking a solid hold in the region: close to 60 percent of its population live under an elected leader who leans or is committed to the left of the political spectrum. While Venezuela's Hugo Chávez may be attracting the most media attention, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa are following close behind the ideological tenacity that they bring to governance and as a result, the region is witnessing transformative changes which seem to be more real than ephemeral.

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