Rubio's Influence on Latin America Policy: Much Ado About Nothing?

Interesting article in Politico about Marco Rubio's influence on Latin America policy, like the reference to him as the "virtual Secretary of State for Latin America." But something nagged me. Something seemed a but off about the influence. I mean, he's clearly influential, but...what? It finally crystallized as I thought about what Latin America policy would be like if Marco Rubio had no influence.

The answer is barely different.

He is viewed as having outsized influence on Venezuela and Cuba policy and keeping the administration centered on them. Makes sense. But in Venezuela, he's not getting what he wants, which is TPS and more interest in a military solution. He gets the oil embargo, I guess, but people like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo would've wanted that too. For Cuba, he's just getting establishment Republican policy, which would've been identical no matter what. Roll back Obama, love the embargo, no dialogue.

He's seen as contributing to ignoring the rest of Latin America, especially Mexico. Well, OK, except that for Trump, U.S. policy toward Mexico is driven from within the White House and would've been like that no matter what. Remember how Kushner ignored the State Department and everybody else. Further, Trump doesn't care about the rest of Latin America, so I wonder whether anyone could've convinced him otherwise. Trump likes Rubio's obsession with Cuba and Venezuela because it's about his own re-election, and he doesn't care about Latin America policy not related to re-election. Do you really think that absent Rubio, Trump would care about South America? He insults Colombia, our strongest ally, all the time, and that's not because of Marco.

This bring me to my next point. Rubio has been successful in getting his acolytes appointed to policy positions. I recently wrote about Carlos Trujillo in Global Americans. For Rubio, "personnel is policy," according to his office, and he pursues it with petty abandon. But in the Trump administration, the adage isn't true. Trump doesn't care what State Department officials say. However, they do have an impact on bilateral relations on the ground, and so can easily worsen them by showing ignorance about regional issues. I don't know if that's been the case or not.

This is all one big counterfactual. Would there be dramatic differences if Marco Rubio were not involved so deeply? He's got influence, but how much does it matter except for his ego and his cronies?

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Michael Kozak on Latin America Policy

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Michael Kozak, talked on-the-record about U.S. policy. Here is the gist:

--The Bolivian coup government can delay the presidential election, no biggie.

--The Cuba embargo is totally going to work. History tells us so!

--Bolsonaro is, well, and Brazil, geez, they're tough, who the hell knows what's going on.

--Nicolás Maduro won't face up to reality so we are kinda out of ideas.

--Crap, you're going to keep asking me about Trump's comments and I sure as shit don't want to get into that, but some delays are OK and some aren't.

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Government Violence in Bolivia

Andrew Pagliarini writes in The New Republic about the political crisis in Bolivia. He links to the new report by Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the University Network for Human Rights, which is really disturbing. The title is They Shot Us Like Animals so you immediately get the drift.

According to witnesses, government repression since November 2019 has extended beyond killing protestors to quell criticism. The government has harassed, arbitrarily arrested, and tortured people that it perceives to be outspoken against the Áñez administration. Many Bolivians have found themselves facing charges or detention for vaguely defined crimes such as sedition, while others have been attacked in the streets by security forces and para-state actors. Certain visible groups are particularly susceptible to this persecution, including journalists, human rights defenders, and politicians. The result of this repression has been a pervasive climate of fear in many communities. 

Pagliarini frames the postponement of the presidential election in terms of lithium. Like so many other times in Latin America, political crisis and U.S. interests centers on a primary good deemed to be essential. And we're all using lithium.

Añez will hold on as long as she can, so international pressure is essential. Sadly, this will definitely not come from the Trump administration, which rushed to give the new government aid. As usual there is no unified stance among Latin American countries or any regional leadership on it.

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Making Latin America Policy

I recommend Evan Ellis' post at Global Americans on his recently completed year at the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff. He now returns to the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. It is a useful read both for its insider look and its discussion of "why does this matter?"

Here is a key point:

The problem is also compounded by the fundamental orientation of the State Department to tell our partners what we think and want, rather than listening to what they think and want. While seasoned diplomats know better in their personal interaction, I observed the balance of the work that came across my desk to be about “transmitting” rather than “receiving.” Every high-level meeting involves the preparation of “talking points” seeking to advance an agenda, too seldom did they include questions about what our partners thought or needed.

This echoes Lars Schoultz's In Their Own Best Interest, where he questions all "uplifting" aid, the effects of which are never measured. We can check boxes on delivery and execution, but not on whether it actually makes lives better. Making lives better requires starting with what our partners actually want. This has often been true, but is accentuated in the Trump era.

In my own work, I did not see substantial evidence that the strategy and policy documents of each organization are actively used as guides to action by the other, beyond superficial references to fundamental documents such as the National Security Strategy. I also witnessed and participated in the drafting of some interagency documents, but beyond the somewhat useful exercise of meeting and coordinating about their wording, I did not perceive that the result meaningfully impacted the direction of either state or the other U.S. government entities involved.

This is clearly a Trump administration problem, though past administrations were clearly not immune.  Unlike the past, though, the essential problem now is that policy is made by tweet, with government agencies scrambling to interpret it just like the rest of us. How do you feel like you're doing something meaningful when the president ignores you?

I appreciate these kinds of perspectives. As a side note, as he does not address it, I know a number of people who have moved from academia to policy making and back, and I know their view of of the relevance and accuracy of academic work changed dramatically. I have not felt great temptation to try the policy making world myself, even as I recognize that even in small doses it would make us better analysts.

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Kirk Tyvela's The Dictator Dilemma

I read Kirk Tyvela's The Dictator Dilemma: The United States and Paraguay in the Cold War am writing a review for The Latin Americanist. I really liked it.

The “dictator dilemma” was often at the core of U.S. policy toward Latin America during the Cold War. U.S. policy makers professed commitment to democracy, yet commonly supported pro-U.S. dictatorships to advance U.S. security interests. The dilemma played out clearly in Paraguay, where dictator Alfredo Stroessner ruled by force and won elections with around 90% of the vote from 1954 to 1989. Kirk Tyvela’s book is a deeply researched and compelling addition to the literature on U.S.-Latin American relations.

You'll have to wait until later in the year to read the rest. But it's a great read.

One thing I liked in particular was his attention to Paraguayan sources. He used Paraguayan archives but only to the extent that they exist, which is minimal. That is the big challenges for future scholars, which will require close consultation with local experts of whatever country (and hopefully publishing collaboration as well). Are there untapped primary sources? The literature on U.S.-Latin American relations cries out for it.

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What Biden Policy Toward Latin America Might Look Like

A few days ago I wrote about the Latin America part of the Democratic Party's platform. Now Juan Gonzalez, who as an Deputy Assistant Secretary of State was part of Latin America policy under Obama, writes in Americas Quarterly about what a Biden administration policy could look like.

The main thing I like about it is that he brings Mexico front and center, whereas the platform actually doesn't even mention it. Mexico is our most important Latin American partner by far, and must be part of any discussion of trade, immigration and/or Central America. There is a lot of work to be done, and we need Mexico's help to do it.

I also like that Colombia gets more attention, because the peace process needs support, and as he points out, we need to get beyond narcotization. He mentions helping with the exodus of Venezuelans, but I would also like the U.S. to be more publicly mindful of displaced Colombians as well.

There is more, on Brazil, the Caribbean, climate, multilateral response to Covid-19, and even the simple task of not being a model of corruption. Just that would be nice.

The great visibility of the United States makes us an example all over the world, for better or for worse. When we live up to our ideals as a nation, it bolsters civic-minded leaders elsewhere. But when our leaders deny facts and model corrupt behavior, it encourages actors who are anathema to our hemisphere’s democratic progress and social advancement. The task of building back better requires us to find common cause in our shared prosperity, a renewed partnership on climate change, a resolve to guarantee the security of our citizens, and a sense of urgency toward realizing a shared vision of a hemisphere that is secure, middle class, and democratic.

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Venezuelan Healthcare and Covid-19

This morning, Chris Sabatini at Chatham House moderated a Zoom panel entitled, "How Prepared is Venezuela's Healthcare System for Covid-19." The participants were:

José Miguel Vivanco, Executive Director, Americas Division, Human Rights Watch

Tamara Taraciuk Broner, Acting Deputy Director, Americas Division, Human Rights Watch

Dr Kathleen Page, Associate Professor of Medicine, John Hopkins University

The answer to the panel's title question is, as anyone paying even passing attention would accurately guess, emphatically no. There is no good news. There is no silver lining. A massively corrupt and uncaring dictatorship is letting people die and lying about everything. Doctors are washing their hands from the drips of air-conditioning units before doing surgery. Many hospitals don't have potable water. Aid is tricky and the gasoline shortage makes it hard to reach the interior of the country. We have no idea how many people have the virus and how many people have died from it. Repression makes it hard to find out anything. BTW, I had never heard the phrase "verbal autopsy" before. That's where we are in terms of data collection, down to trying to get information on demand for funeral homes, but even then people are afraid to talk openly. It's an onslaught of bad, but Covid-19 has distracted the world from the disaster.

What can the international community do? We need a truly multilateral effort with a common position. José Miguel Vivanco lamented the Trump's administration embrace of militaristic rhetoric, which makes things worse. The UN is barely paying attention.

John Hopkins worked with Human Rights Watch before Covid-19, and already last year warned that Venezuela was in a dire healthcare crisis.

Anyway, it was a really interesting discussion, but one that left me sad and frustrated.

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Nicaraguans Want Change and Don't Thinks It's Too Likely

Manuel Orozco directed a survey in Nicaragua for the Inter-American Dialogue. The results show deep distrust that has developed over years of corrupt government, from Daniel Ortega of course but also the right. Nicaraguans want free elections and they also want good choices, and they don't see either happening.

It would be logical to assume that Nicaraguans would lay the blame for the crisis--political, economic, public health, etc.--on Daniel Ortega. But that's only partially true. This graph caught my attention the most:

Several of these questions get at the repression and ineptness off the government, but a lot of people see this as just another example of Sandinista/right political conflict, which has dominated the country for over 40 years. Further, check out the sizable chunk of people who believe the crisis stems from the U.S. and the right.

Who do Nicaraguans want to vote for? They don't seem to see good options. They don't identify with the political parties and a majority doesn't even identify as "pro-government" or "pro-opposition." If the election were held today, a large majority either doesn't know or would not choose from any candidate (which they could write in). They think there will be fraud and see international observers as important.

What can we take away from this?

--Lack of popular interest in the opposition and an alternate leader works very much to Ortega's favor.

--International observers are critical for the legitimacy of any election. The next presidential election is now scheduled for November 2021.

--Ortega's inept response to Covid-19 is truly devastating. No one believes him when he says it's barely affecting the country.

--There is support for sanctions, but they should stay very focused on the Ortega clique.

--as with Venezuela, the situation keeps getting worse with no real solution in sight.

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MLB (Weakly) Acknowledges Injustice in Venezuela

Last night was opening night for Major League Baseball, a huge thing for all of us baseball fans. The issue of social justice was apparent, down to the highly visible "BLM" stenciled on the pitching mound. Before the game, the players knelt and held a long, black tapestry, the brainchild of Phillies star Andrew McCutchen. This sort of display is radical for baseball.

What I didn't know is that McCutchen meant it as a general statement about injustice, and specifically included Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

"This is a moment for us to honor each other, to honor the things that we're going through," he said. "With the social injustices we're going through in this country, with the things that exist outside our nation -- places like Venezuela, the Dominican Republic. To honor that and show that we honor each other, that we have each other's back, that we're going to fight for each other. And the way we do that is by collectively being together as one. This is a representation of that."

I can't find anything to suggest that McCutchen has talked about Venezuela before, or even what exactly he's referring to in the DR. It might be as simple as the fact that he has teammates from there. In terms of injustice, he certainly needs to add Cuba (I don't think there are any Cubans on the 40 man roster for the Phillies, which might account for the omission).

The acknowledgment, therefore, is pretty weak, to the point that hardly anyone is aware. I wish players, announcers, and writers would give it some more attention. Baseball is an international game, and players from other countries face problems that are different but sometimes no less dire.

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Latin America in the 2020 Democratic Platform

Here is a link to the latest draft of the Democratic Party Platform. Here is what I wrote about 2016 in Global Americans. The party is not paying much attention to Latin America, either then or now. Back then, I wrote that countries were just jumbled together. In 2020 they solved that problems by not mentioning countries at all. Mexico is not mentioned at all, even in the discussion of USMCA. 

I know, I know, the platform is just a basic document of values, with a lot of cooks making the soup. But as I noted last year, is it so hard to say we support the Colombia peace process and anti-corruption efforts in Central America, we value Mexico for everything, and the like?

Below is the "Americas" section:

Democrats believe the Western Hemisphere is America’s strategic home base—a region bound together by common values, history, and vision of a more prosperous, democratic, and secure future. When the United States hosts the region’s leaders at next year’s Summit of the Americas—the first to be held here since the 1994 inaugural meeting in Miami—we will turn the page on the Trump Administration’s denigration and extortion of our neighbors, and we will chart a new era of cooperation based on partnership and shared responsibility for the region we all call home. 

"Denigration and extortion." Strong, but accurate. I really don't like "strategic home base," which is militarist and imperialist. It's not our home--it's their home.

Democrats will reaffirm the importance of North America to U.S. global economic

competitiveness. We will ensure the USMCA lives up to its commitment to create prosperity for American workers, and we will strictly enforce compliance with its labor and environmental provisions. We will reinvigorate and build upon the North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza launched under the Obama-Biden Administration and work with our partners to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused the biggest economic decline in history across Latin America and the Caribbean. 

This is a funny paragraph, beginning with acknowledging Trump's passage of a new bill, then pivoting to an Obama policy as counterweight. The labor and worker language is like 2016, which also reflected Bernie Sanders' influence, but I feel like the wording is stronger now. 

Rather than coerce our neighbors into supporting cruel migration policies, we will work with our regional and international partners to address the root causes of migration—violence and insecurity, weak rule of law, lack of educational and economic opportunity, pervasive corruption, and environmental degradation. Rather than encourage climate denial and environmental devastation, we will rally the world to protect the Amazon from deforestation, protect Indigenous peoples, and help vulnerable nations in the Caribbean and Central America adapt to the impacts of climate change. And rather than imitate populist demagogues, we will link arms with our neighbors to realize our shared aspirations for the region’s future. 

This is new and good. In 2016, Democrats framed immigration largely in domestic terms. Viewing it in structural terms, including climate, is a reality-based view, and very necessary.

We will reject President Trump’s failed Venezuela policy, which has only served to entrench Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorial regime and exacerbate a human rights and humanitarian crisis. To rise to the occasion of the world’s worst refugee crisis and worst humanitarian crisis outside a warzone in decades, the United States will mobilize its partners across the region and around the  world to meet the urgent needs of the people of Venezuela, and grant Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans in the United States. Democrats believe that the best opportunity to rescue Venezuela’s democracy is through smart pressure and effective diplomacy, not empty, bellicose threats untethered to realistic policy goals and motivated by domestic partisan objectives. 

There are no specifics and Biden has never had any beyond doing mostly what Trump is doing without the empty threats. TPS is clearly critical, so a good step forward and he really needs to contrast himself in Florida on that issue.

Democrats will also move swiftly to reverse Trump Administration policies that have

undermined U.S. national interests and harmed the Cuban people and their families in the United States, including its efforts to curtail travel and remittances. Rather than strengthening the regime, we will promote human rights and people-to-people exchanges, and empower the Cuban people to write their own future. 

This is an easy one. Obama started it, and Biden will get back to that point and move forward again.

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Carlos Trujillo: Trump Loyalist for Latin America

Check out my post over at Global Americans about the nomination of Carlos Trujillo to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. My take is that he would be the least qualified person in the position's history and is there solely because of loyalty to Donald Trump. He is very much a "troika of tyranny" kind of guy.

He even showed that in the hearing yesterday, where he repeated Trump's favorite line of a military option in Venezuela still being on the table. It is Trump's way of telling everyone how tough he is.

There is no particular reason he wouldn't be confirmed, in the sense that he hasn't done anything extra objectionable since his last confirmation. Senator Ben Cardin briefly held up his nomination to the OAS in 2018 to get more information from the State Department about TPS, so something like that could potentially happen again.

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Suffering Matters: When Political Leaders Get Covid-19

Boz has an ungated post from his newsletter about Latin American leaders who have Covid-19. I had been thinking of writing briefly about this as well, and he mentions what I had been thinking about:

In a presentation last week, I said my big concern was “Bolsonaro is going to survive coronavirus and then double down on being an idiot because his own survival will give confirmation bias to his belief that the disease is not that bad.” I stand by that comment.

I think this merits more attention, in Latin America and everywhere else. However, it's not about "surviving." I would call it "non-suffer bias." Those who get it and suffer are never the same. Those who get it and have only mild symptoms have a very different narrative. For them, it's just the flu or maybe just an irritating cold.

The Governor of Oklahoma announced he had Covid-19 even as he refused to mandate masks. He said he was achy but not too bad. Bolsonaro got it (tested positive twice!) and seems similarly little affected, which is the case for a lot of people. Covid-19 is not the Superflu of The Stand but rather a more crafty thing that kills the vulnerable and also kills and maims others in unpredictable ways. If you are a skeptic when you get it, you come out feeling more sure of skepticism if it only touched out lightly.

Politically, this is potentially huge. If a skeptic gets the virus and recovers easily, their ongoing story is that this is no big deal, just a bad cold, just a flu, and their platform gives that wide dissemination. They have "proof" in their own experience.

Contrast that to Juan Orlando Hernández, who was in the hospital, feared for his life, and made an emotional plea when he left the hospital. And that's a very conservative president. He survived but suffered, so his narrative is different. Boris Johnson suffered and now wants mandatory masks in shops, which fellow conservatives don't like.

I see lots of "ha ha, karma" tweets when skeptics are tested positive, but that entirely misses the point. It is the opposite when the virus treats them gently, and that has political repercussions.

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Evangelicalism Offers a Way Out for Gang Members

José Miguel Cruz and Jonathan D. Rosen, "Mara Forever? Factors Associated with Gang Disengagement in El Salvador." Journal of Criminal Justice 69 (July-August 2020).

Abstract:

Objective

This study examines the factors associated with intentions to leave a gang in a context controlled by some of the most violent and structured street gangs in the Americas. It contends that group interactions better explain intentions to leave a gang in a place like El Salvador than life-course events.

Method

Based on a series of logistic regressions using a cross-sectional survey with nearly 1196 active and former gang members in El Salvador, we identify the factors associated with disengagement intentions. We complement the analysis with 24 in-depth interviews with former gang members.

Results

We find that group-related variables, such as the number of gang members in the clique, learning that a peer has successfully left the gang, incarceration, and affiliation with an Evangelical church are the most critical factors associated with attempts of disengagement. Intentions to leave the group are a direct function of the gang's ability to regulate the life and peer relationships of its members.

Conclusions

Social environments controlled by gang rule constrain the potential effects of life-course events. They curb the chances of disengagement, even among those with maturational tools required to desist from gang life.

Jonathan Rosen has done a lot of great work on gangs in El Salvador, and we discussed the issue of leaving gangs on my podcast back in December 2018. As always with his work, read the methodology section about interviewing gang members--it's not your everyday work.

The key findings are that "life-course" events, such as getting married, employment, or having children, don't seem to prompt gang members to leave. Instead, religion is central, both because it offers some moral clarity for the individual, but also because it is an accepted reason. In other words, you won't get killed for it.

It would be neat to connect studies like this to analyses of Evangelicalism in Central America. It's interesting, for example, that Evangelicalism offers a path out that Catholicism apparently does not. Perhaps only Evangelicalism provides a sense of being saved, of actually changing course. As Cruz and Rosen note, gang leaders "only accept the Evangelical church." Catholicism doesn't count.

 

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The Political Impact of AMLO's Trip

AMLO ass-kissing trip to visit Donald Trump was a strange spectacle, with the Mexican President insisting, contrary to what we've all seen and heard for years, that Trump was respectful of Mexico. AMLO decided long ago that the best way to deal with Trump is kiss his ass. For AMLO, "respectful" basically means that Trump hasn't tweet-stormed him. After all, not long after meeting, Trump said the U.S. would be "inundated" by Covid-19 without the border wall, which is both absurd and not respectful.

Jorge Castañeda makes the argument in a CNN interview that AMLO's praise might win Trump the election, or at least preventing him from losing it, which would happen if he didn't win Texas. His take is that Mexican-American voters will hear AMLO and think, "Oh, Trump's not so bad for Mexico and Mexicans." Indeed, a Trump campaign official said the comment as "as good as it gets--basically an endorsement." 

Yes, it is basically an endorsement, especially combined with snubbing Joe Biden. But I still am not buying the overall argument. If you are Mexican-American, you have seen for yourself the impact of Stephen Miller and Trump's policies, perhaps even firsthand. AMLO doesn't erase that.

However, I could see this working for white people not of Latin American descent who otherwise don't know much about the topic. Even so, I don't see this issue as swinging a voter. They will more likely be voting on the economy and Covid-19.

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Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist

Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist is part manifesto, part memoir, and part national history. His discussion is interspersed with personal reflections that repudiate not only his own past words and actions, but also his parents and others. He is unsparing when it comes to becoming antiracist ("I arrived at Temple as a racist, sexist homophobe").

He argues that you can either be racist or antiracist. If you claim neutrality, you are leaving racist structures in place, which is therefore racist. And you can move in and out of the two--it's not a permanent state, but rather a continuous aspiration. For example, if you claim to hire based only on merit, you are failing to understand that you cannot avoid seeing race in ways that society has taught you. Pretending not to see race when you clearly do is a problem--your biases will affect you while you pretend they don't exist. It is such a simple yet powerful argument (and, in fact, so perfectly applicable to academia).

He contrasts antiracists with assimilationists and segregationists. Both of the latter are racist because they both assume a hierarchy of racial value. In one, you try to be like the "best" group and in the other you remain forever separate. And both ignore the fact that what are commonly believed to be inherent characteristics of different racial groups is in fact just the product of policies. Antiracists focus on the policies. Violence comes from poverty, not skin color, and policies can lift people out of poverty.

Each chapter is a theme: body, space, sexuality, and many others. What emerges is the tremendous complexity behind antiracism, which requires constant rethinking of long-held assumptions and beliefs. Further, it is a mistake to think of antiracist progress without considering the accompanying progress of racists, who find ever new ways to subvert antiracist efforts, like ubiquitous use of the term "reverse discrimination" or "all lives matter."

He ends on a positive note, amazingly enough with a comparison to his own battle with cancer. Racism is a cancer, which is nasty and strong but still can be defeated. But it's hard even for the most determined, because it involves pushing back against centuries of racist power structures.

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Review of George Orwell's Animal Farm

After many years, I reread George Orwell's Animal Farm (I think it was assigned to me in high school at some point). It is, of course, an allegory of the Soviet Union, with Stalin (Napoleon the pig) gradually subverting a revolution for his own power, eventually becoming indistinguishable from those who ran things in the past.

As we listen to an administration that lies in precisely the same ways as the ruling pigs in the novel, who changed the revolutionary commandments while pretending they remained the same, Orwell reminds us that this isn't about communism, or even necessarily the Soviet Union. It's about power-hungry leaders. For Orwell, the communal farm run by the animals together remained a desired goal. He was all for socialism. He disliked both capitalism and communism--in the end, both result in a small elite that lies and uses force to keep itself in power at the expense of everyone else.

I can't think of this novel without also thinking of Pink Floyd's Animals album. The song "Sheep" is great, though different from the novel, where the sheep don't overthrow anything. I doubt Orwell could imagine the sheep killing the dogs. Actually, Orwell never presents any answers--he just warns.

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End the Cold War Already

When do we get to end the Cold War? This year has been horrible in so many ways, and some icing on the cake is that I am pretty certain I haven't heard "socialist" and "communist" as epithets this much since, well, the actual Cold War. I had been thinking about this, then read this interview between Tim Padgett and Frank Mora, who is stepping down as director of FIU's Latin America & Caribbean Center:

So it's no secret you're a Democrat – but you're a Cuban-American Democrat in Miami. You support engagement with communist Cuba. Twenty years ago, more conservative Cubans might have called you a comunista. Do you still feel like a rare bird here in that sense?

Now you see a majority of Cuban-Americans agreeing with President Trump's view, which is a dramatic change in only a couple of years. But to be frank with you, Tim, that language, that rhetoric is coming back. The use of “socialism” and “communism” to try to discredit those who don't agree with the mainstream Cuban Americans is rearing its head again. And I think it's unfortunate.

This is exactly it. You get Black Lives Matter labeled as communist. AMLO gets criticized for talking to "communist regimes." Florida Governor Rick Scott says "The Communist Party of China is in for world domination…And so it’ll be a pretty dark world." Like we live in the Marvel Universe. And we'd be here all day if I started really listing all the inaccurate, simplistic, and even laughable ways the word "socialism" gets thrown around. Did you know that taking down statues of the Confederacy leads to socialism, because that's what happened in Venezuela? I bet you didn't, but you do now!

And so what does this mean in practice? As former Cuba Chargé d'affaires Jeffrey DeLaurentis put it in a recent op-ed:

It's as if we had regressed to the 1980s, when we looked the other way at the abuses of right-wing dictators and excoriated only those on the left.

That sort of thing in fact has happened since the 1980s (see George W. Bush and John Bolton) and I complained then too. Throw around words like "communist" and "regime," and you get ideological cover to go after your political enemies, wherever you might find them.

When will we finally be free of the Cold War? The example of the Confederacy tells us it could a long time, perhaps even long after you and I are long gone. The symbols of the Confederacy are a great cover for racism--hey, it's just heritage! "Communism" is also a convenient and tidy cover, and ideologues don't give those up easily.

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Colombia Ambassador Talk

I watched a talk by Colombia Ambassador Francisco Santos Calderón, organized by Global Atlanta. Yes, that Santos family--he was Vice President under Alvaro Uribe and related to past presidents. You can, then, guess what kinds of things he would emphasize. The discussion was aimed at investment, but a few things caught my attention. I actually had tuned in because I was interested in hearing about the response to Covid-19, but that didn't get discussed a lot.

He was asked about the peace deal, and said that the "short-term issues are being done very, very well" even though some long-term issues might be delayed. He specifically referenced the Kroc Institute, which recently released a report on it. So I went to check out the report. It is, in fact, very carefully worded by clearly negative.

The report presents a quantitative analysis that shows that at the end of the third year of implementation, according to the methodology used by the Barometer Initiative, 25% of stipulations have been fully implemented. Another 15% of stipulations are at an intermediate level of progress, meaning that they are on their way to being fully implemented in their corresponding timelines. A further 34% of commitments are at a minimal state of implementation, having started but made marginal progress. The remaining 26% of  commitments have yet to be initiated. 

This is definitely not "very, very well." Or even "well." His observation was that "you need accountability from the other side." 

Another of his arguments was more accurate, but I don't often hear it mentioned in such a positive manner: there is a lot of investment opportunity in Colombia because it is so highly integrated with the U.S. military, second only to Israel. I am not sure exactly what he had in mind, but it likely does not dovetail well with success implementation of the peace agreement.

As for investment, "let's make the Americas great again!" 

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Biden and Trump on Venezuela

Donald Trump has been hard to sort out with regard to Venezuela. You really cannot start with any of the typical core assumptions. One of those is that Florida is critical for him in the presidential election, so he'll do whatever he can to get the hardline Cuban-American and Venezuelan-American vote. It ostensibly makes even more sense because during 2016, he actually courted the Bay of Pigs vote, which is way out there in terms of pure pandering.

But this assumption just does not seem to hold. Those hardliners want Maduro out, preferably by force. They abhor dialogue, which they see as a farce intended to allow Maduro to stall. And yet here is Trump in an interview, a mere five months before the election:

In an Oval Office interview with Axios on Friday, President Trump suggested he's had second thoughts about his decision to recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela and said he is open to meeting with dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Current policy is based entirely on the notion that Guaidó is in fact the president. This statement upends that. The idea of high-level dialogue is anathema to Trump's base. They truly hate the idea, even though it's actually more rational than their suggestions.

And yet even Joe Biden disapproves. 

This is not a good response. The "thug" comment strongly suggests a "get tough" line that has been failing in Venezuela and Cuba. Biden knows full well that dialogue--even handshakes!--was good policy. He can rightly criticize Trump for screwing up the potential for dialogue, but trying to be tougher than him will not lead to good policy. And I don't think it will suddenly convince Floridians of anything much.

Back to Trump: what's he doing? He's following his feeling of the moment, which might already have changed by now. He's angering the Florida base and his own advisors, yet I doubt this will lead to any substantive change in policy either.

In conclusion: neither candidate has a coherent policy toward Venezuela.

Update: I had missed this from today. Incoherent as always.

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Colombia in the OECD

Colombia joined the OECD, which was news I hadn't even noticed. Sara Danish and Norberto Martinez write about it at Global Americans.

Membership carries real weight and gaining entry requires more than currying favor with a few key “sponsors.” Beginning in 2013, Colombia underwent technical reviews by 23 OECD committees spanning topics from trade to environment to public governance and justice, a process that prompted various reform measures, including the 2014 Transparency and Access to Information Law and 2011 Anti-Corruption statutes to prevent, investigate, and punish corruption. 

I won't argue with the notion that it's positive, but I do wonder how much. Perhaps it is possible (though not measurable) to say a country would be worse off without it, but Mexico became a member in 1994 and the rule of law has suffered terribly since then (the 2019 OECD report on Mexico discussed failure a lot). Chile joined in 2010, and the past decade has seen protests, corruption charges, and other problems. Having a big USAID presence doesn't necessarily make anything better, either.

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Review of Carol Anderson's White Rage

Carol Anderson's White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide is a clear, concise history of the never-ending anti-Black structures erected after the Civil War.  White elites built a system specifically designed to harm African Americans. It was obviously anti-democratic, but it was anti-capitalist as well, not to mention pro-terrorist. Capitalism entails workers moving freely and finding the jobs/wages they deem optimal, which African Americans were not allowed to do. White landowners wanted laborers, but refused to allow those laborers to work their own land. The important point, though, is that the system wasn't just discriminatory. Discrimination was the conscious design, with the prison system as the ultimate slavery replacement.

The white establishment spoke asked constantly why African Americans couldn't become self-reliant while ensuring that the effort was impossible. Further, the very second that slavery ended, that same establishment decided that African Americans were getting "special treatment" as they simply tried to receive equal treatment under the law, a message that remains very loud today, including on college campuses. Meanwhile, African Americans were systematically excluded from education in the South for decades, to the great delight of segregationists, which set back generations of people and caused damage to the entire country.

Even worse, they were (and are) blamed for the poverty that inevitably flowed from systematic exclusion. Built-in disparities were suddenly indicative of poor character. Wanting equality was suddenly wanting more than everyone else. And when overt racism and segregation became a PR problem, Ronald Reagan came in and blocked desegregation through busing while cutting financial aid, student nutrition, and other services that were essential for helping Blacks receive a good education (the administration has a lot to answer for with drugs, though the argument that Reagan is solely responsible for the cocaine trade as a way to help the Contras is not convincing).

Mass incarceration specifically targeted the Black community, and not long afterward so did voter-ID laws. You may remember that all the many accusations of voter fraud never actually yield evidence or lead to convictions. It is entirely a mirage intended to limit Black voting, especially after Barack Obama won the presidency. It is now common to hear "voter fraud" as an excuse to limit voting by mail, early voting, or anything else intended to make voting more accessible to African Americans while purging voters as much as possible. "Election integrity" is a dog whistle.

The book is an historical avalanche. There is, of course, a lot on the South but institutional anti-Blackness was entrenched everywhere, and often emanated from the White House and/or Supreme Court. Again, it was systematic and specifically aimed at African Americans, to prevent them from living, working, traveling, going to school, etc. As Anderson points out, George Wallace drew crowds all over the country with his message of resentment.

My wife and I both grew up in California, and when we moved to Charlotte as newlyweds, we got all kinds of snide comments about the South based on an assumption of moral superiority. But you don't have to dig much to find deeply rooted racism all over the United States, and California has a history of discrimination through laws against African Americans. From historian Shirley Ann Wilson Moore:

Although lawmakers had failed in their attempts to ban black entry to the state, California's legislators at­tempted to deter people of color by erecting a bulwark of laws that deprived them of civil rights and left them vulnerable to exploitation. Denied citizenship, they could not legally homestead public land; they were forbidden from voting, holding public office, giving court testimony against whites, serving on juries, sending their children to public schools, and using public transportation.

This is a national history, not just a southern history. As Anderson points out, the Voting Rights Act has been applied all over because of discrimination, and without its protection, many previous gains are lost.

Millions of Americans fear the Black vote, and fear Black success. Anderson ends with more discussion of voter suppression, because it's so critical. Fair voting practices would have a significant political impact at all levels of government. White rage will do anything to stop it.

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Bolton, Trump, and Venezuela: Just As Crazy As You Think

I am not going to read John Bolton's memoir. Maybe when we're back on campus and the library has it, I'll look at the Latin America parts, but I am not sure it will tell us much beyond what we already know. The Washington Post has some juicy parts about Venezuela, for example.

In one May 2019 phone call, for example, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, part of what Bolton terms a “brilliant display of Soviet style proganda” to shore up support for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Putin’s claims, Bolton writes, “largely persuaded Trump.”

...

Bolton attributes a litany of shocking statements to the president. Trump said invading Venezuela would be “cool” and that the South American nation was “really part of the United States.” 

...

For instance, driven by a desire to please Florida Republicans, Trump talked tough about his desire to oust Maduro throughout much of 2018. But Bolton portrays Trump as inconsistent and worry-worn when presented with the opportunity to support Guaidó, who declared himself Venezuela’s president in January 2019. Though Trump approved of a proposal from Bolton to publicly declare the United States recognized Guaidó rather than Maduro, within 30 hours Trump was already worrying that Guaidó appeared weak — a “kid” compared to “tough” Maduro — and considering changing course. “You couldn’t make this up,” Bolton writes. 

Bolton, in my opinion, is full of crap. I was one of the people who really feared a U.S. invasion of Venezuela, but it took a while for me to understand that Trump doesn't actually want to use military force abroad*. He just wants to pretend that he wants to. And this is actually good. Pretend all you want. But I don't think this is Putin's influence. This is just Trump ignoring Bolton's insane desire to use military force in Venezuela. And Bolton, don't forget, thinks invasions solve everything.

The rest of the quotes are basically just writing that Trump says stupid and untrue things all the time, which is of course accurate and well-known. But the bottom line is that Bolton wanted to invade and Trump didn't. In this particular case, Bolton was far more dangerous than Trump.

Bolton has nothing new to say beyond what we already know. If he had something new, he would've testified to the House and gloried in the impeachment spotlight. But since he had nothing much, he just hinted about his book to boost sales, hid, and waited until he could get some headlines when the book came out. 

A charlatan got together with a narcissist, then wrote a book. Don't bother to buy it, you've been watching the movie already anyway.

* At home is another matter entirely.

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Luis Almagro Sounds Just Like Donald Trump

Under Luis Almagro's direction, the OAS issued a remarkable statement about the ongoing public debate about the statistical soundness of the OAS analysis of the Bolivian presidential election. It is whiny, paranoid, blustery, defensive, hyperbolic, unprofessional, unconvincing, and does considerable damage to an already damaged institution. It is a PR disaster, unless you went to the Trump School of Public Relations.

Almagro sounds exactly like Donald Trump: "Obviously, we recognize the NYT’s right to lie, distort, and twist information, data, and facts, and to mix truth and lies as often as it wishes." For him, all critics are biased liars and they're out to get him. And, in a another Trump-like twist, where you attack others for what you do, he blames others for interfering in Bolivian affairs. Beyond the NYT, he targets the Center for Economic and Political Research, though not by name. I've disagreed with CEPR analyses, but it's not reasonable to call it a "“propaganda tank” that "goes into the realm of tragicomedy." It's just pissy. He continues with several paragraphs of insults. It even gets weird, accusing the NYT of propaganda because of Herbert Matthews.

The statement is self-defeating. It's an embarrassment. The OAS has always suffered from accusations of pro-US bias. Having a Trumpish figure as its head only cements that image. It's time for new OAS leadership. Sadly, he was literally just re-elected to a second five-year term.

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Chile and the U.S. Deal With Covid-19 Similarly

Bloomberg takes a really interesting look at Covid-19 in Chile, which has been hit hard. The bottom line is that the "stay at home" message is an inherently privileged one. 

What went wrong in Chile goes to the heart of the debate over lockdowns, which health experts now acknowledge work well for the haves but not for the have-nots. In the end, Chile’s virus fight seems to have fallen victim to the same factors that sparked crises in other emerging markets -- poverty, overcrowding and a massive off-the-books workforce. Staying home for long periods, the world has learned rather painfully, isn’t a real option for many.

I see so many parallels to the United States, where Latinos are disproportionately affected by Covid-19.  The affluent can stay home and still get paid, but that is a privilege that relatively few enjoy. Virtue-signalling messages and hashtags about staying home mask the true magnitude of the problem. 

Nonetheless, the common U.S. response of simply reopening doesn't address the problem either. People feel they can't stay home even if they're sick; too few people have access to affordable healthcare; people who go to work while schools are online have no childcare. The list goes on.

The Charlotte Spanish-language newspaper La Noticia recently ran a story about how Latinos are the hardest hit, yet the state has no strategy at all. Same problem in Chile:

“If the government is going to make decisions about a world it doesn’t know, then it should include people from that world in the decision-making process,” said Diego Pardow, executive president of the Espacio Público think tank. “The problem with this government is that it just surrounds itself with its own people.”

Governors in the U.S. get a lot of attention, but it's been on "re"opening and not on helping those who were always open. Those of us who work from our laptops tend to think the supermarkets should have all the same products as usual. But people are still picking, packing, shipping, etc. We hear news stories about, say, a meatpacking plant closing, and maybe we're pleased. We don't think about what the laid off workers--both sick and well--do afterward.

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Podcast Episode 75: Restrictive Immigration Policies in the Southeast

In Episode 75 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talk with Maggie Commins, who is Shelton Professor of Political Science at Queens University of Charlotte, about her forthcoming article on restrictive immigration policy tone in the southeast, which is coming out in the next issue of The Latin Americanist. It's some really interesting research based on coding data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. 

You can find this podcast at iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts can be found. If there is anyplace I've missed, please contact me. Subscribe, rate, and keep 6 feet from it.

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Covid-19 Hits Latinos Hardest in Charlotte and NC

Every day, I check the Covid-19 data for North Carolina, and every few days Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte is) releases its own data. Last month local news pointed out that the Latino population was being hit disproportionately hard, and that trend has accelerated.

At the state level, as of June 9, 42% of all cases were Latinos (which currently translates into 10,634 cases) but only 7% of deaths. They are 9.6% of the total state population.

In Mecklenburg County as of June 7, Latinos accounted for 37% of all cases and 6.2% of deaths. They are 13.6% of the population. In short, they are less affluent so more likely to get it, but younger so less likely to die from it. For a while, the county has included this observation in their data summary:

More than a third of reported cases are Hispanic – most of whom are younger adults. The high number of reported cases among young Hispanics over the last several weeks remains a significant concern. As previously noted, some factors influencing this trend include: Targeted testing occurring in neighborhoods with lower access to care, some of which have larger Hispanic populations; 

Higher proportions of Hispanics working in essential jobs that make social distancing difficult; 

Significant household spread among large families; and 

Pre-existing disparities in other social and economic determinants of health, like poverty.

MCPH continues to expand outreach to Hispanic members of our community, including increased dissemination of the outreach toolkit in Spanish for community partners, setting up targeted outreach to Hispanic owned- and serving-businesses, and partnering with local organizations and media outlets to spread key prevention messages.

There is a real class divide here that I haven't seen play out with the flu or any other past contagious outbreak. I think there is a push from middle-class whites to reopen in no small because they don't know anyone who has contracted the virus. They only detect it indirectly when, for example, there is an outbreak at a meatpacking plant and then there is a brief shortage of meat at the store.

There are no easy answers here. Outreach is certainly critical, but to really address the issue we would need state recognition of undocumented immigrants as deserving of unemployment insurance and other kinds of benefits. We would also need generous sick leave for everyone. People who live payheck-to-paycheck will inevitably work even with symptoms because they have no alternative. 

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Review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Back in 2011, I actually started a book review that started with "If you're not familiar with The Hunger Games, it is a trilogy by Suzanne Collins about a totalitarian dictatorship." Perhaps you are familiar with it now. I loved the series, which I binge read over a Christmas break, then the movies as well. Now Suzanne Collins released a prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which is about future President Coriolanus Snow as a teenager.

Of course, we know where he ended up (and I see him always as Donald Sutherland, just perfect). So this is a story about how a political regime we know, and Snow himself, move from some postwar uncertainty to a fascist dictatorship. The Hunger Games are part of that, and Snow (prodded by the malevolent Dr. Gaul) spends the book thinking about what order and control are. He is from the Capitol, cash-poor but with an elite name, and his own political philosophy stems from his own sense of being at the top of the pyramid. Those in the districts not only caused the war in his mind, but they are backward socially and culturally. He is in the elite high school academy, and with some classmates gets integrated in the games, which at that point are not yet slickly produced.

For him, loyalty to Panem is not artificial or imposed. Panem was unfairly attacked, chaos ensued, and then it won the war and made everyone's lives better by re-establishing control of the country. If inferior people couldn't see that, then it just made sense to force it on them. Fascism came naturally to him--nationalism, control, and order all flowed together.

A romance (with all kinds of challenges) is central to the novel, and Snow navigates it--and his friendships--as his worldview develops. To say much else would be a spoiler. The book is great entertainment, but is not exactly escapist because fascism is on all of our minds these days in a way that is distressingly close.

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Iran Has Failed in Latin America

Stephen Johnson has an article in Foreign Policy arguing that Iran is trying to revive its presence in Latin America, with gas tanker arrivals being a prominent example. Fair enough as a starting point. Then the article goes in an interesting direction, serving as a solid narrative about how much Iran has failed completely in the region. Indeed, there is mostly evidence that Iran is no position to do much at all--it has financial problems and few allies.

I've written a lot of posts over many years about Iran in Latin America. To some degree, every one was about how the threat Iran allegedly posed was extremely overestimated. Here is my assessment over 13 years ago:

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.

Lots and lots of talk. Now back to Johnson:

By some accounts, there was growing disappointment among Iran’s senior leaders over years of costly investments that never paid off.

And the rest of his article sustains that. After all these years, a lot of headlines, a lot of articles written, and a lot of high-profile visits, there is very little there there, so to speak. Any revived influence at all requires a highly unlikely scenario of Iran-friendly governments, strong economic growth, and consensus within Iran that this is worth the trouble. Even then, there is not much to revive because there wasn't much there to begin with.

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Why Dialogue in Venezuela Isn't Working

David Smilde & Geoff Ramsey, "International Peacemaking in Venezuela’s Intractable Conflict. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies," (109): 157–179.

Abstract (fyi, the article is ungated):

Can international peacemaking efforts succeed in an intractable conflict such as the one in Venezuela? In this paper we put forward a conceptualization of peacemaking processes that underlines their ability to creatively change the terms of a conflict. Then we look at the four dialogue and negotiation processes that have occurred during the government of Nicolás Maduro. Our review shows that while it is clear that the Maduro government uses dialogue processes as a delay tactic through which it can divide and demobilize the opposition, clear progress has been made in the mediators’ ability to generate concrete articulation and discussion of the conflicting parties’ demands. However, international allies on each side of the conflict are affecting the calculations of the two sides, working against an agreement. 

First off, I love the fact that the Venezuela Politics and Human Rights blog is noted as the source of much of the empirical content. That's actually one of the great things about blogs. And as a result the article is a useful summary of all the mediation efforts. It would be a good reading in a U.S.-Latin American relations class.

It is common to hear that dialogue is useless in Venezuela, mostly because the Maduro government acts in bad faith and uses the process to its own advantage, gaining time as a result. Smilde and Ramsey say we have to dig deeper, examining the context of each round of talks and the specific role of the mediator. I think the most important takeaway, and indeed it matches conventional wisdom, is that the U.S. messes up mediation by badmouthing it and refusing to let it on sanctions, while Russia and China mess it up by giving the regime feasible alternatives to compromise. Maduro has just waited it out and he's still in power. When the Trump administration declares dialogue to be pointless, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We're left with a situation where dialogue cannot realistically work without major shifts in the views of the U.S., Russia, and China. Well, and now maybe add Iran to that list. The U.S. context can only change if Joe Biden wins, and even that wouldn't have an effect for months. Neither Russia nor China is opposed to dialogue per se, but each wants to protect its investments and each also views Venezuela within the prism of rivalry with the U.S. Being an irritant and projecting power into the Western Hemisphere serves their interests.

Were you hoping for a happy ending? I hope not.

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Latin American Militaries and Covid-19

Today I listened to a panel where a variety of experts (Arturo Sotomayor as moderator, Kristina Mani, Maiah Jaskoski, Harold Trinkunas, Adriana Abdenur, and Rut Diamint) on Latin American civil-military relations talked about the military's response to Covid-19. There were a lot of good points made, but two things in particular struck me. I should also note that these points are not attributed to any particular person.

First, there is almost no public discussion about it. Latin American and U.S. analysts alike have been talking a lot about this in recent months, but seemingly their alarm is not mirrored in Latin American legislatures or in the general public. I think this is a critical and rarely discussed issue. We do generally see the public expressing confidence in the armed forces, even in countries with troubled histories. However, does that translate to more or less blanket approval of increased military actions during this crisis? If that is the case, then analysts can wring their hands all they want, but the situation is not likely to improve.

Second it's dangerous to frame the virus in terms of national security and "war." This officially militarizes the situation, but also allows for the government to justify actions and sacrifices that otherwise would not be acceptable in a democracy. It allows for skirting the constitution. We've already seen the problems with the "war on drugs" and the "war on terrorism" both in the U.S. and in Latin America.

This issue is just getting more important and relevant by the day.

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Review of Allcock's Thomas Mann

I always like a good questioning of conventional wisdom, and Thomas Tunstall Allcock serves it up in Thomas C. Mann: President Johnson, the Cold War, and the Restructuring of Latin American Foreign Policy (2018). In class and in my textbook, I've never referred favorably to either Mann or LBJ. I actually discovered I have one sentence that sums them up:

He [LBJ] was even more inclined than Kennedy to forge ties with Latin American militaries and to use covert action. His choice of advisor on Latin American affairs showed that commitment (135-136).

Pretty dismissive. I actually wonder why, given Mann's opposition to the Bay of Pigs invasion and LBJ's outright invasion of the DR, I used the word "covert." But I digress, as they say.

The now infamous Mann Doctrine accepted anti-Communist authoritarianism, while LBJ invaded the Dominican Republican and supported the wave of military coups that hit the region after the Cuban Revolution. It ends up not being a total reappraisal because Allcock is cautious about going too far in that direction, but it's a needed addition to the era--I've always found Mann interesting but there is little about him.

One of his arguments is that "Johnson's presidency still compares favorably to others in the Cold War era in terms of the scale of financial aid provided to the region and the priority given to encouraging Latin American development" (4). To be fair, this is a relatively low bar.

Further, Johnson's efforts to reshape the Alliance for Progress was a "genuine alternative" to the entirely modernization-obsessed JFK example. He argues Johnson and Mann were rooted in the New Deal era with a sense of limits to U.S. policy. Richard Goodwin writes in his memoir that Mann was "a colonialist by mentality who believes the 'natives'--the Latin Americans--need to be shown who is boss" and so the Alliance was dead (245). Allcock takes a poke at the "best and the brightest," (including Goodwin specifically) a club to which Mann didn't belong, arguing instead that he was pragmatic and did not fall for grand theoretical generalizations. Allcock sees Mann's years as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico as evidence of his mastery of diplomacy, even as Goodwin and others whined about him.

He says it is not a moral story: "If any value judgment of that policy is present, it is that flexibility and a willingness at least to consider the interests of other nations is a position preferable to one of neglect or domination" (10).

As for the so-called Mann Doctrine, Allcock views it in large part as a creation of a hostile press, which was in the Kennedy camp and preferred the higher soaring rhetoric. Mann was furious about the leak of his meeting (which is what Tad Szulc at the New York Times based his article on) and noted that Kennedy's own previous nominee had said more or less the same thing.

We arrive at a place where Mann is not exactly rehabilitated but he is situated in terms of continuity. He's certainly no better than the Best and the Brightest, whose bestness and brightestness didn't stop a stupid invasion of a Latin American country. But by no means did he support Latin American democracy when a Communist threat seemed present. In that, he's no worse either. No one in U.S. policy circles really thought non-elite Latin Americans should decide their own futures if that even appeared to threaten U.S. interests. No one in U.S. policy circles doubted that many deaths would occur as a result. 

He was no angel but no more a devil. Mann was a skilled diplomat at particular times, which resolved conflicts that could've needlessly become a lot worse, such as in Panama. That's a good thing. Not huge, but a good thing. In the end, though:

[T]he commonly held view among historians that many of the efforts of this period--and particularly the Alliance--were failure is difficult to dispute" (219).

In the end, security always trumped everything else. I recommend the book, which is a good read.

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Giammattei Says US Is Not An Ally

The Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center hosted a talk by Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei about Covid-19. He has taken strict measures, which in turn have generated criticism for their authoritarian nature, their impact on the economy, and even the sense that as a retired doctor he somehow feels he alone can save the country.

He started by saying that the strictness was necessary due to the lack of hospital space, sending people who tested positive straight to the hospital so they wouldn't infect the rest of their families. He mentioned that reopening would involve protocols and the ability to close areas (even departments) as needed, rather than the entire country.

Then Jason Marczak asked him rather diplomatically about the "role of the United States" and he was clearly pissed. Jason had made some mention of the US being an ally and Giammattei corrected him, saying Guatemala was an ally of the U.S. but the reverse was not true because Guatemala was not being treated that way. The Trump administration is deporting infected Guatemalans, which is a major source of the country's cases. He understands that the U.S. wants to deport, he said, but not why they're deporting infected people. We've complied with all the protocols like the CDC recommends, he added, but they haven't.

And who can argue? I should point out as well that the Trump administration used the CDC to block all asylum seekers, infected or not. Now all those being deported are stigmatized in Guatemala as well. Not exactly the work of an ally.

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Cuba in the 2020 Presidential Election

I listened to a Zoom webinar on the implications of the 2020 presidential election on U.S.-Cuban relations, with Bill LeoGrande, Margaret Crahan, and Phil Brenner. Arturo López-Levy (who I talked to last year on my podcast) moderated.

LeoGrande thinks Biden is missing an opportunity, which I agree with. He characterized Biden as     having a strategy of "caution and avoidance." He could focus on remittances and family reunification, and follow Obama's strategy of reaching out to moderate Cuban-Americans. (Interestingly, he also thought Biden should probably pay a lot more attention to Puerto Ricans in Florida). He also figures there is a very good chance Cuba goes back on the state-sponsor of terror list.

Biden hasn't totally ignored Cuba. I criticized Biden's tweet going after Trump for failing to deny Cuba's place on the UN Human Rights Commission and how it smacked of hypocrisy, so was a bad strategy (unlike other tweets, he even put it out in Spanish). I got pushback on that, but it still makes sense to me--focus more on Trump's punishment of average Cubans and how it serves no purpose. Don't treat Cuban-Americans as primarily hardline. Normalization of relations was a popular move so stick with it.

Meanwhile, Venezuela is a wild card. Crahan notes rumors of a lot of illegal Venezuelan money coming to Republicans during the campaign. I hadn't heard that before. Regardless, the "Democrats are soft on Maduro and want the U.S. to become like Venezuela" will certainly be a major message.

As usual, all eyes on Florida in a U.S. presidential election.

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Review of T.H. White's The Once & Future King

T.H. White's The Once & Future King was one of a number of books I have owned for years and always meant to read but hadn't. In fact, toward the beginning of the novel an old movie ticket fell out that obviously I had used as a bookmark when I started it one time. The ticket was for the Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley in April 1992, my senior year in college (the movie was Shadows & Fog, of which I have no memory). 

Then 28 years later, a UNC Charlotte student mentioned the book in a graduation message, and I learned it was one of my dean's favorite novels, so I finally read it. There were two things in particular I did not know about this book. First, it is remarkably modern and funny for something mostly written in 1938-1940 and then published as a whole in 1958. It is loaded with sex, violence, and sarcasm. Second, I did not know its core message was about mid-20th century international politics.

The arc of the book is from light to dark, starting with Arthur's story of pulling the sword out of the stone and trying to forge a sense of right and wrong to replace the mindless pursuit of battle, then moving to a lot of deceit and death. There are references to communism (Merlyn turned him into an ant early on to see what it was like, and they're communists with no individuality) and fascism, with Mordred compared directly to Hitler, complete with anti-Semitic public speeches. Among the many tragedies of the narrative is that Mordred forces Arthur into enforcing alliances with violence, thus spreading the misery that Arthur had originally tried to quell. Doing so also meant Arthur allowed his belief in using force to compel justice to supersede his personal wishes.

As the novel goes on, Arthur becomes more serious and more despondent. He can't think of any way to avoid war and to live in harmony. He goes round and round in his mind, knowing that all of his best efforts had the opposite effect he wanted. He used might to end might, and everything just got worse. White clearly despaired at humankind's inability to learn anything over time.

Throughout, though, there is wry humor. Early on, Arthur (then called Wart) speaks to a badger, who wanted to read him his dissertation: "He got few chances of reading his treatises to anybody, so he could not bear to let the opportunity slip by" (181). It gets Monty Pythonesque. Lancelot goes into a pavilion, falls asleep, and then "It was moonlight when he woke, and a naked man was sitting on his left foot, trimming his finger-nails" (337). They fight briefly and the man screams "You have cut open my liver" but then decides the wound is nothing, "a bit of a chip." Or, near the very end in a moment of high drama: "Gawaine was trying to think, an effort not made easy to him by practice" (609). These little asides are sprinkled everywhere. They lighten up a tale you know will end in nothing good, I suppose not unlike international politics at any given time.

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Majoring in Spanish

This piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Ignacio Sánchez Prado about how the study of Spanish is discriminated against and dismissed made me think a lot. There are so many important elements in there, but I am going to shift to my own narrow undergraduate experience, because I keep thinking about it. One of his points is that we need to preserve and emphasize Spanish-language literature as an important thing to study, research, and teach to students. I can't agree more based on my own life.

I came to college with no real sense of what I wanted to do. I took Spanish because I had been doing so since 7th grade (I grew up in San Diego, where just about everybody did), through AP as a senior, so it made sense and seemed familiar. I loved the literature classes. I took more Spanish than Latin American lit--I don't know if that was because of the department at the time or my own prejudices (I eventually did a year abroad in Madrid). But the literature classes are why I decided to major in Spanish (along with Political Science). That combination was totally coincidental, but prompted me to take Latin American politics. It was a logical connection and I needed it for my Political Science major anyway.

I'd have to find my transcript to remember the exact classes I took, but two things stick with me. One was a course with John Polt. I remember being in the class quite distinctly, though I can't recall his teaching style per se. But I know he made the study of literature seem cool--I went to the bookstore and bought his translation of José Camilo Cela's San Camilo, 1936, which is a really hard to book to read, and which I tried to lumber through, mostly unsuccessfully. The other was reading pre-19th century Spanish literature, though I don't remember which class it was. That's why I love the Captain Alatriste novels by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. 

Anyway, I'm on board with his conclusion:

Defending Latin American and Iberian culture at large is of particular importance in this age of Hispanophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment. We have the capacity to fight these phenomena, and a growing responsibility to do so. At a time when administrations are less likely than ever to invest in our growth, we need to bring into our departments subfields like Central American studies, Latinx Hispanophone literature, Afro-Hispanic studies, and indigenous studies. These are urgent areas of study — and there is student demand for them. If we are to deliver cultural recognition, inclusion, and justice to the largest immigrant populations and the speakers of the second-largest national language in the U.S., Iberian and Latin American studies should be front and center in conversations about literary studies. I hope that other humanists will fight alongside us against the existential crisis that threatens us all.

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The Venezuela Invasion Agreement

The Washington Post has the story about how Juan Guaidó's political strategist signed an agreement with a mercenary to invade Venezuela, the operation that failed and was always doomed to fail. The agreement is dated October 16, 2019 and it has the feel of a video game, with wanton violence, no accountability, and irreality.

The goal of the operation is made explicit and repeated throughout: "The exit/removal of current Venezuelan Regime and entrance/installation of recognized Venezuelan Government."

A lot of it is about money, both up front and later: "Following completion of the project, investors will have a preferred vender [sic] status with the new government in Venezuela" (3) Payment comes however they can get it: "In the event of cash insolvency, Administration may choose to make payments in barrels of oil." (4)

There is a lot of language, none of it believable, about about how the mercenaries were not doing the fighting and would only use force in self-defense. "Service Provide personnel are in an advisory capacity only. They are not combatants. They will not conduct unilateral operations. They will only conduct operations while colocated with Venezuelan Partner Group" (7)

There is a lot of discussion about Rules of Engagement and what you can destroy and kill. Infrastructure is fair game.  Planting mines is all good--no worries, we'll note where we put them. Hezbollah is OK (no, I am not making that up. It's specifically in there). You can detain citizens and search their homes. The whole thing is horrible.

And, naturally, the Venezuelan government had no jurisdiction over the group while it is performing its duties (23). The lunatics run the asylum. Oh, and if anyone sues the group, the Venezuelan government has to pay for its defense (38).

BTW, no one will know these are Americans. "They will do everything possible to conceal their identity to include but not limited to use of partner group uniforms, balaclavas, use of Badges and Credentials" (27).

And the kicker: the group has the right to loot any place it enters for an "objective," including real estate, art, and "money in bank accounts," then charge the Venezuelan government 14% of its value to return it. I am not making that up.

As Geoff Ramsey notes, a lot of this stuff directly violates Venezuela' international agreements. The fact that Juan Guaidó even entertained such nonsense tells you a lot about his judgment. If there's one thing the Venezuelan opposition is really good at, it's shooting itself in the foot.

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Total Wackos Try To Overthrow Maduro

Five years ago I reviewed Stephen Dando-Collin's book Tycoon's War about William Walker, which I recommend. It's all about a moronic shyster who thought he could invade Latin American countries with a ragtag group of losers. Everyone in the book is an asshole.

Fast forward to today. Joshua Goodman has a scoop about a moronic shyster from the U.S. who tried to help invade Venezuela and overthrow Nicolás Maduro with a ragtag group of losers. Everyone in the narrative is an asshole, and the Venezuelan leader is in federal prison on a narcotics charge. A bunch of dumbshits hung around a Bogotá hotel and cooked up a testosterone-fueled plan. Training with sawed-off broomsticks as guns, what could go wrong? Easy to see one of the re-open pseudo-soldier types (the "good people") deciding he could easily overthrow what he figured was a bunch of dumb Venezuelans. They all thought they'd get some cash from a wealthy member of a famous cheese-making family. Of course.

Goodman and the AP has found no evidence of Trump administration involvement. One of the dopes organizing the fiasco claimed to have administration support, but even those around him doubted it. Hard to imagine someone like John Bolton disliking such a scheme, though, and there's no way the administration didn't know it was happening. The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN criticized Goodman's article, saying it failed to give proper responsibility to the U.S. and Colombian governments.

Bozos like this have been around as long as men with weapons have been around.

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The Experiment of Reopening

Michael Reid writes in The Economist about the pressure in Latin America to loosen quarantines. People in poverty simply can't remain locked down without substantial financial assistance. Across the region, they just start ignoring orders.

In most cases, the minority who are not respecting lockdowns are acting out of necessity. Data from Google, which tracks mobile phones, show more movement in poorer states and provinces in many countries. Several national governments, including those in Colombia and Peru, have been swift to get emergency payments to some of their poorer citizens. But that is a big challenge: one out of two Latin Americans works informally, often relying on daily cash takings. A new popular slogan holds that it is better to die of coronavirus than of hunger.

In the U.S., such resistance is embarrassingly different. People who could stay home demand their right to a...haircut. The reopen movement in the U.S. is tied closely to privilege. Even here, though, at a certain point people will resist because they will run out of money.

In both Latin America and here in the southeast, we are living science experiments. I feel this acutely as a resident of North Carolina. Neighboring Georgia has been reopened a week, while our current stay-at-home order expires on May 8 and Governor Roy Cooper will have to decide whether to extend it or start phased reopening. Like many other people, I am looking at the experimental group next to us, fearing a disaster and fervently hoping one never materializes. If the healthcare system in Georgia is not overrun, we will start reopening as well. Other states will follow. Given the potential human costs, it's unnerving.

There is a similar vibe in Latin America. Reopening may be geographically differentiated within a country, or national, but everyone will be looking intently at the effects versus places that have not opened up. The scary thing is that we're talking about potential catastrophe, namely death and hospitals being overrun. The risks are extraordinarily high, but it's going to happen sooner rather than later.

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A Year After April 30

One year ago today a gunman walked into a classroom in the Kennedy Building at UNC Charlotte, killing Reed Parlier and Riley Howell (who should be graduating now), wounding four others (Emily Houpt, Sean DeHart, Rami Al-Ramadhan and Drew Pescaro) and traumatizing many more. Here is what I wrote last year about it.

A year later, we cannot remember it together in person because of Covid-19. I have not even been on campus since March 20. This evening at 5:10 there will be an online remembrance ceremony after the in-person one had to be cancelled. (On this point, you can also read the feelings of Adam Johnson, the anthropologist who was teaching the class, about how this remembrance was handled, which are quite critical). This is so unfortunate, because the vigil and the ceremony last year were moving, with everyone there together. In fact, Emily Houpt participated in commencement last year for my college, and that was very emotional as well.

We also cannot say that as a society we've made even an inch of progress toward reducing gun violence in this country. The only reason mass shootings aren't happening as much now (though they're still being tried!) is that we're all quarantined in our homes so there aren't many gatherings--and no schools--to target. We are a broken country in this regard.

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