Castro: still around

There is yet another video of Fidel in the ubiquitous Adidas track suit, hanging out with Hugo Chávez, though the video I’ve seen stays on the waist up. My conclusion: he’s not dead yet.

Simultaneously, however, there is considerable discussion in Miami about his impending demise. More specifically, there were plans afoot to have a big celebration in the Orange Bowl, including specially made t-shirts. Only when public reaction made it clear that this was in terrible taste did the city start backing off. Of course, I am not living in exile and have never lived in a dictatorship, but still. A public celebration for death (which doesn't even mean the end of the regime) is too much.

This also makes me wonder what the reaction will be in the U.S. generally when Castro dies. Will the jubilation in Miami turn people off? Or will they just not care one way or the other?

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Decree power

So the Venezuelan National Assembly is soon expected to approve decree powers for Hugo Chávez, which would last 18 months. There are eleven different areas that will fall under this decree power:

• Transformation of state institutions

• Popular participation

• Essential values in the exercise of public administration

• Economic and social matters

• Finance and taxation

• Citizen security and justice

• Science and technology

• Territorial arrangement

• National security and defense

• Infrastructure, transport and services

• Energy

I’ve been chewing on this a little bit, and trying to think of something that isn’t included in these categories. I wonder what the current rate of capital flight is.

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Happy blogoversary to me

One year ago today I started this blog, largely as a way to explore current events in Latin America in a way I didn’t have time for in class. I spent a lot of time lurking in other people’s blogs, looking at what they did, got a little help from Michelle, and away I went.

It has been an enormous amount of fun, just writing about Latin America and having people comment periodically and send me emails. I think about the issues more because I know my comments will sit out there for many people to read, and I engage in debate every once in a while—even on other blogs as we cross fertilize. After a year, I’m enjoying it more than ever.

There has been one unexpected element to all of this. I chose the name quickly, just a play on my name (though in one conversation, my Mom kept saying, “Yes, but what does it mean?”). I did not realize that when people want to leave their jobs, they google “two week notice” or “how to write a two week notice” or “template two week notice.” And they find me. There was quite a rush of them right before Christmas. Funny thing is, a few of them actually stop for a while and read.

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India and Latin America

In response to yesterday’s blog about Venezuela, I was very pleased to receive an email from Rengaraj Viswanathan, who was India’s Ambassador to Venezuela from 2000 to 2003, and currently Head of the Latin America and Caribbean Division of India’s Ministry of External Affairs. For everyone interested in Latin America, I would recommend his blog Latin American Affairs. I’ll get it up on my blogroll when I get a chance. This is definitely one of the great aspects of blogging.

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NYT Magazine on Chavez

The NYT Magazine has a piece by David Rieff on Hugo Chávez, which is annoyingly bad. The primary problem many U.S. observers have is that they ascribe too much power and influence to Chávez, even believing a lot of what he says. In addition, there is a strong tendency to equate Chávez with Castro in his early years, even when the comparison just doesn’t work. The problems with this article are similar to those in a recent CNN article. So we learn that:

--Chávez is creating a “Soviet-style command economy.” Who knows, maybe someday, but Venezuela is still a very capitalist country.

--he plays the same role in 2007 as Fidel Castro did in 1967 as an “iconic” figure for the world. This is incredibly overstated—just look at polls showing what Latin Americans, for example, think of him. He certainly has supporters, but he is nowhere near Fidel in his prime.

--“the left-wing surge throughout Latin America continues unabated.” Oh man, are people still writing this sort of nonsense? He claims that this “Castroite Latin American left” will unite with Iran and Hezbollah in a global fight against the U.S.

His arguments require that you ignore Latin American (and even UN) resentment about Chávez’s meddling, ignore internal politics in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, ignore the intricacies of the Venezuelan economy, ignore the complexities of political shifts within Latin America, and that you swallow whole all the claims that Chávez makes.

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Tortilla crisis

I had written briefly a few weeks ago about the rise of tortilla prices in Mexico. This is growing into a serious crisis, and the Washington Post has a good article on the problems involved. Conventional wisdom is that rising demand for ethanol is the culprit, but Mexicans are increasingly blaming the shady relationship between the government and huge corporations. For example, ethanol is made from yellow corn, but tortillas are made from white corn, yet the price of white corn is indexed to the price of yellow corn. Further, one company (Grupo Gruma) controls about 80% of the tortilla flour market, and both the Fox and Calderón governments routinely make policy based on the desires of corn brokers. So far, Calderón’s solution has been to reach a “gentleman’s agreement” with companies to cap tortilla prices, though there are already charges that it is not being followed.

The article also does a nice job of outlining the health issues at stake. Tortillas are an important source of both protein and calcium, but when the price is too high, people are shifting toward cheap instant noodles, which are starchy and loaded with sodium.

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Events in Ecuador

A student, Mark Rowsey, had emailed me several days ago about the death of Ecuador’s defense minister, who had been at her job nine days. The minister, her daughter, and five officers died when two helicopters collided. He mentioned that friends of his in Ecuador indicated that rumors were really flying—Correa would run the ministry himself, the U.S. was involved, the military did it, there was no way the helicopters would crash without sabotage, etc.

The sad truth is that Ecuador’s military is so politicized that even conspiracy theories seem less outlandish. Sam Fitch, a very well known scholar who has studied civil-military relations in Latin America for years, wrote a book about Ecuador entitled, The Military Coup d’Etat as a Political Process, which says it all. It was only seven years ago (almost to the day) that the military overthrew a government.

Fortunately, however, the reaction to the deaths has been measured and fully in line with democracy. President Correa has said that not only will he name a new minister, his nominee will be another woman. He has ordered a special commission to study the circumstances of the crash. A government spokesperson advised against any speculation. She had a large funeral with full participation by the armed forces. And as far as I know, the military itself has kept totally quiet.

So far, this incident just doesn’t have the flavor of a conspiracy. There doesn’t seem to be much more tension than there ever was: at least in public, Correa and the military leadership have remained mutually respectful. Of course, there are many things we don’t know. But at the moment, you could make the argument that this is a successful handling of a potential civil-military crisis in a coup-prone country.

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President Bush and immigration policy

I hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss President Bush’s mention of immigration reform in the SOTU. Here it is:

Extending hope and opportunity in our country requires an immigration system worthy of America, with laws that are fair and borders that are secure. When laws and borders are routinely violated, this harms the interests of our country. To secure our border, we’re doubling the size of the Border Patrol and funding new infrastructure and technology.

Yet even with all these steps, we cannot fully secure the border unless we take pressure off the border, and that requires a temporary worker program. We should establish a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis. As a result, they won’t have to try to sneak in, and that will leave border agents free to chase down drug smugglers and criminals and terrorists. We’ll enforce our immigration laws at the worksite, and give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers, so there’s no excuse left for violating the law. We need to uphold the great tradition of the melting pot that welcomes and assimilates new arrivals. We need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country, without animosity and without amnesty.

Convictions run deep in this Capitol when it comes to immigration. Let us have a serious, civil, and conclusive debate so that you can pass, and I can sign, comprehensive immigration reform into law.

I’m glad he added this to the speech, and in particular I totally agree with the notion that we need a system that has the Border Patrol going after dangerous people, as opposed to those looking for work. The problem, however, is that he said similar things last year, but never went beyond just talk.

Stung by the president’s past refusal to actually push for immigration reform, Democrats are now demanding that he deliver at least a quarter of House Republicans. This seems a shrewd move, as it tells the president to put his money where his mouth is. If he does it, Democrats can take a large share of the credit for reform; if he fails, he looks even weaker, which could make it easier for Democrats to block him in other areas.

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Final thoughts on Iran in Latin America

I had written (for example, here) about President Ahmadinejad’s recent mini-tour of Latin America, which was intended—in conjunction with Hugo Chávez—to rouse anti-imperialist sentiment against the United States. My own conclusion was that it had almost no effect at all.

Now The Economist reveals that the Latin America trip was very unpopular in Iran:

Mr Ahmadinejad's anti-American bluster has also been attacked in light of his recent visit to Latin America, widely viewed as ill-timed and unnecessary. A reformist daily, Etemaad-e Melli, called the Venezuelan, Ecuadorean and Nicaraguan presidents, who embraced Iran's president, “left-wing friends, good for coffee-shop discussions but not for setting our security, political and economic priorities”.

During the trip, Mr Ahmadinejad announced he would put $1 billion into an Iranian-Venezuelan fund to help countries “free themselves from the yoke of American imperialism”. That sharpened the more serious criticisms he faces at home over Iran's economic performance.

A recent statement signed by 150 members of parliament imposed conditions on the president in drawing up the budget for the next Iranian year, which starts in late March. The MPs are now calling on him to defend his record before parliament.

In short, I don’t think Iran will be much involved with Latin America. Unfortunately, however, the U.S. government has yet to demonstrate that it can offer any real alternatives to the rhetorical bluster. Instead, it usually just offers up its own bluster.

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Strep

There is much to blog about, but I've had a very nasty case of Strep Throat. Around here, January has been quite an active month for kid-induced illness.

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Tijuana police

In one the odder stories I've read in a while, police who patrol tourist areas in Tijuana were issued slingshots and bags of ball bearings. Their guns had been temporarily confiscated because of charges that corrupt officers were working with drug traffickers.

I'm trying to conjure up the image. Police have a slingshot hanging out their back pocket like Dennis the Menace, and if they see a problem, they yell, "Halt, or I'll shoot!" while they fumble with the thing, ball bearings flying every which way. Are there professional slingshot masters to teach them how to use it?

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Gratitude

A quote from President Bush’s 60 Minutes interview a week or so ago has been percolating away in my mind, as I think about how in some ways little has changed in the last 80-100 years in U.S. policy. Here is the quote:

We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude. That's the problem here in America: They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.

In my U.S.-Latin American Relations class, just today we discussed U.S. intervention in the early twentieth century, which helps us understand the resentment that built up in a number of countries (most notably in Cuba and Nicaragua). A major theme at the time, which was bipartisan, was that Latin Americans should be grateful for our efforts, and we wondered why in the world they kept fighting against us. We had invaded and occupied for their own good to teach them how to run their countries, policy makers believed, so why can’t we convince them of that?

Secretary of War Elihu Root talking about Cubans in 1901: there would never be independence “if they continue to exhibit ingratitude and entire lack of appreciation of the expenditure of blood and treasure of the United States to secure their freedom from Spain.”
--Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 1998, p. 150

A State Department official spoke in 1926 about Central America: “If the United States has received but little gratitude, this is only to be expected in a world where gratitude is rarely accorded to the teacher, the doctor, or the policeman, and we have been all three.”
--Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, 1984, p. 301

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U.S. policy toward Cuba

It is widely argued (including by me) that although the U.S. embargo against Cuba damages the country economically, it bolsters the Castro regime politically. The Miami Herald has an article arguing that the embargo is also making it more difficult for the U.S. to get global support to condemn human rights abuses in Cuba.

In short, our strong-arm tactics turn everyone off. Plus, Europe is annoyed by Helms-Burton, which is the U.S. effort to extend the effects of the embargo into other countries. Finally, a number of governments believe that U.S. tactics just don’t work:

European diplomats interviewed by The Miami Herald, many of whom declined to be identified because Cuba is a delicate subject, say all its members want democracy in Cuba. But some governments like those in Spain, France and England feel that condemning Havana at this time would prompt the communist government to dig its heels rather than embrace change.

I don’t think that positive statements about desiring democracy in Cuba (which, after all, is clearly a dictatorship) would have a negative effect. But at the very least, let’s admit that our Cuba policy has been a miserable failure and talk about what else might actually work.

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Negro League Baseball

Yesterday I had the very cool opportunity to meet and get the autograph of Larry LeGrande, a former Negro League baseball player who was Satchel Paige’s last catcher. For anyone who doesn’t know, Satchel Paige is in the baseball Hall of Fame and is one of the best pitchers of all time, in any league. LeGrande now sells memorabilia here in Charlotte as a way to raise money for former players who are struggling financially. In recent years, it’s been nice to see how MLB and the general public is becoming more interested in Negro League baseball and honoring the people who played it.

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Quick Chavez note

Hugo Chávez says that Fidel Castro is "battling for his life." In itself, that's not terribly interesting. But recently I've been making fun of the U.S. media a lot, so I thought I would acknowledge when it does something right. In that article, the Associated Press does a nice job of summing up one of Chávez's defining characteristics:

Chavez is known for making bold statements without elaborating.

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Mercosur and Venezuela

Last July, I wrote about the challenges Mercusor would face as a result of Venezuela joining. Now those very issues are starting to emerge as representatives come to Rio for a conference. Hugo Chávez wants the organization to be more political, and Brazil is chafing at the sudden challenge to its leadership.

So, for example, Chávez says Mercosur should be about “decontaminating the contamination of neoliberalism.” This would mean changing it entirely, since Mercosur is based on the idea of open markets and capitalism.

Chávez wants it to reflect “anti-imperialism.” Yet most of the countries, even the supposedly “leftist” ones, have good relationships with the United States and don’t want to antagonize it unnecessarily.

A former Foreign Minister of Brazil summed it up nicely:

Mr. Lampreia, referring to his former colleagues, said, “They’re starting to realize they’ve fallen into a trap.” He added: “They thought they could influence Chávez, but he can’t be influenced. He’s the owner of the ball, rich and all-powerful, and says and does what he wants.”

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Guatemala

From the Miami Herald:

GUATEMALA CITY -- Former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt announced on Wednesday that he plans to run for Congress in Guatemala's September elections, which could make it harder to prosecute him on charges of violating human rights during the country's 36-year civil war.

Ríos Montt said he would not run for the presidency -- he ran in 2004 and came in third -- but expressed confidence he would win a congressional seat. Members of the country's Congress enjoy immunity from prosecution unless they are suspended from office by a court.

It would be truly disgusting if he won. Coincidentally, I’ve been reading the book When States Kill to review it for a journal, and one of the chapters (by M. Gabriela Torres) is an interesting though very sobering analysis of cadaver reports in Guatemala in the 1980s. The government used the announcements of discovery of bodies to instill more fear into the population and to send messages about what might happen to anyone who opposed the dictatorship. Ríos Montt, who was in power only about 16 months (in 1982 and 1983), was one of the most vicious. In that short time, there were over 12,000 politically motivated murders and disappearances.

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CNN on Venezuela

Periodically I get annoyed with U.S. media portrayals of Latin America. I wrote yesterday about CNN, and here is another example, from someone who is labeled the “business and financial news anchor and reporter for CNN en Español.” The subject is Venezuela.

From him, we learn that Venezuela is following the “North Korean style” of communism. Readers of this blog know I am very skeptical of Hugo Chávez, but come on. He is not closing his borders, killing thousands of people, or getting a poofed-up hairdo and big sunglasses.

We also learn that “Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil have similar ideologies to Chavez but don't share his statism.” His ideology is based on statism, so if they are not statist, what is their similar ideology?

Further, “like Cuba, Venezuela will remain an economic island, at least in the medium-term.” Countries that pump out large quantities of oil do not become economic islands without outside intervention (e.g. war with the U.S.). They have governments lining up to talk trade. Anyhow, Cuba’s problems with isolation stem from the U.S. embargo, not from anything intrinsic to the Cuban economy.

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Castro: Not Quite Dead

Rumors of Fidel Castro’s imminent demise are flying around once again. In this case, a Spanish doctor who came to Havana was reported to have said that he had diverticulitis. That same doctor quickly claimed that he was not the source of the report. This story has become more about the media than anything else. For example, CNN’s resident talking head doctor wrote a column thanking all the reporters for their work in giving him just enough grist to continue speculating wildly about Castro’s condition. Repeating rumors is an essential role for a free press.

What amuses me the most is this: since last August, when he admitted having health problems, we have learned almost exactly nothing. All our best government intelligence, reporting, and speculation leads us to the following conclusions: he is an 80 year old guy with a serious intestinal problem, and that’s just not good for his long-term chances.

I think Castro may have the record for most times 1) diagnosed with a serious illness and 2) diagnosed as dead because he happened to take a one day vacation.

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Inauguration in Ecuador

Rafael Correa’s inauguration was relatively tame, and Ahmadinejad’s mini-tour of Latin America did not yield some sort of anti-U.S. alliance. The U.S. press generally played up Correa’s criticism of U.S. policy, even while admitting it has not been extreme.

And really, his overall message is hard to contradict. Corruption is rampant, foreign debt has become an unbearable weight, poverty is serious, and U.S. policies are not necessarily consistent with Ecuador’s interests. Let’s just see what happens with his call for a new constitution, as that has become one of the most problematic issues in Bolivia.

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