Preval and Obama Meet as Questions of Fraud, Corruption Surface

President Barack Obama said the United States remained steadfastly committed to providing financial asssitanec for the rebuilding process in Haiti while meeting with Haitian President Rene Preval Wednesday at the White House. With spring rains beginning, Obama remarked, today's challenge is "preventing a second disaster," although the US president offered no specifics about how much aid the US was prepared to provide in the months to come. [An aid package working its way through Congress will likely be around $1 billion, say analysts]. The private meeting and public news conference in the Rose Garden took place as the US continues to drawn down its military presence Haiti. On Wednesday, the latest to leave was the hospital ship, the USN Comfort, although some 10,000 US troops remain in the country (down from 22,000 troops at its peak). Preval, the New York Times reports, "embraced the need for decentralization and shifting government and private facilities away from the battered capital, Port-au-Prince, and also urged the creation of a team at the United Nations that would be the disaster equivalent of peacekeepers."

The Washington Post adds to reporting on the Obama-Preval meeting Wednesday, saying Preval felt as if he had received a "cool" response from congressional leaders, wary that Haiti could handle a massive influx of direct aid effectively. "For years," the paper writes, "the United States and many other donors have preferred to channel funds through the United Nations and other nongovernmental organizations, citing concerns about corruption and bureaucratic dysfunction." And while Preval insisted to the Post that Haiti had come a long way in fighting fraud and waster, that of distrust feeling continues to hold among many lawmakers who seem hesitant about the president's calls for "spontaneous" infusions of much needed short-term aid for things like shelter and agricultural seeds. However, the Post continues, Preval did say he was "encouraging people to move from the overcrowded capital by providing education, health care and jobs in the provinces" and was in favor of "setting up a donors' trust fund to be overseen by an agency that would track the spending." For more on the matter of corruption and fraud, the Post also runs an editorial this morning, saying Preval looked "utterly unprepared" to answer questions about corruption and transparency while in Washington. "No one accuses Mr. Préval of the abuses associated with so many of his predecessors. But his insistence that Haiti's government has nothing to do with corruption since aid money is funneled from international donors to nongovernmental organizations rings hollow," the paper opines. The editorial continues: "If he expects Congress, international financial institutions and the world's other major donors to pony up billions to rebuild Haiti, he can help his cause by taking concerns about corruption seriously and spelling out ways the government can help the international community to contain it."

Despite all of this, the Miami Herald rounds out coverage of the Preval visit, saying the Haitian president remains "optimistic" that US lawmakers will pour in more direct aid to his country. Speaking with the Herald, Preval says "[lawmakers] understand very well the problem and they are ready to help. They understand the urgency to act. I know that they will act promptly.'' Nevertheless the paper also comments on growing hesitancy among some lawmakers about a massive Haiti aid build. According to conservative Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtenin, "the time for blank checks for foreign aid no longer exists. We are a caring and generous nation but not at the expense of our economic future.''

In other news:

The NYT also reports this morning on the exit of Michelle Bachelet from La Moneda in Chile and the inauguration of Sebastian Pinera, set to occur to today. The government of the right-leaning Pinera seeks to "entomb the ghosts" of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the paper writes, and after the quake of two weeks ago, Pinera is now calling himself the "reconstruction president." The report continues, saying, "Mr. Piñera, who campaigned on a platform of job creation and law and order, may now have a freer hand to crack down on delinquency and drug trafficking," given the circumstances of post-quake Chile. On the economic front, recovery efforts will be led by a cabinet of "technocrats"--many of whom are economists from the country's more conservative Catholic University. But Pinera--a business mogul must be careful not to give off the impression that he and his allies in the private sector are being enriched by recovery efforts, say many political analysts in the country. "All of this [i.e. the quake] has put the issue of Piñera’s business interests and possible conflict of interest on the back burner, but not for long,” said Robert Funk, academic vice director at the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Chile. More on Pinera's inauguration from Spain's El Pais which says the president tried to make friends with his various ideological counterparts in the region by hosting a solidarity soccer match with futbol star/Bolivian president, Evo Morales.

On Michellet Bachelet's exit, the AP writes that while some in Chile have been critical of the outgoing president's handling of disaster response efforts, disaster experts have only words of praise for Ms. Bachelet. "Despite complaints that aid was slow to reach the hungry and homeless, experts say Chile's response to one of history's most powerful earthquakes has been a model for disaster recovery," the news agency writes. "Smart moves -- like insisting that foreign help meet specific needs, quickly patching up roads and having the military handle logistics -- made it possible to deliver 12,000 tons of relief in just 10 days." "There is nothing more frustrating than getting aid somewhere and not seeing it delivered to the people who need it. Here, there is no aid that sits anywhere. It hasn't collected any dust. It's getting exactly to the people,'' says Col. Julio Lopez, commander of the the U.S. Air Force's 35th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, which has been helping deliver supplies from Chile's capital to Concepcion. In the Miami Herald, Tyler Bridges has more on the president-cum-"Comforter in Chief." Recent polls indicate the president's popularity has not suffered due to the quake and some supporters have even comparted Ms. Bachelet's compassion to that of Mother Teresa! According to one Concertacion consultant, "She [has been] the president of the people, not the elites.''

From Mexico, telecom mogul Carlos Slim has become the richest man in the world--the first man ever from a "developing" country to hold that title. This year slim leap frogged past both Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett, says the AP via Forbes. However, the reaction in his home country was decidedly mixed with some accusing the tycoon of opportunism and in the face of continued poverty and inequality.

From Brazil, Lula da Silva is coming under attack from critics in his own country and in Cuba for recent statements about justice and dissidents on the island. In his exclusive with the AP, the Brazilian president said "we have to respect the decisions of the Cuban legal system and the government to arrest people depending on the laws of Cuba, like I want them to respect Brazil.'' Domestically, opponents of the president have interpreted the words as "comparing Cuba's dissidents with criminals in Brazil's largest city who run lucrative drug rings from behind bars and orchestrated a wave of killings on the streets in 2006," the AP writes. While Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, himself in the 23rd day of a hunger strike, said in an interview with the Brazilian media yesterday that "With that statement, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva shows his commitment to the tyranny of Castro and his contempt for the political prisoners and their families...A majority of the Cuban people feel betrayed by a president who was once a political prisoner [himself]." Such comments lead Andres Oppenheimer to reject the notion of making Lula the next Sec. General of the UN. Citing the president's position on Iran in addition to his Cuba statements this week, Oppenheimer argues that Lula be given a job as the head of the Food and Agricultural Organization, not the head of the UN as a whole.

The political opposition in Spain is putting the heat on President Jose Luis Rodgriuez Zapatero to get tougher on Venezuela after last week's indictment alleging a link between that country, the FARC and ETA. The Wall Street Journal echoes others who point out Spain's deep economic ties with Venezuela--ties which could be threatened by too aggressive an investigation by the Spanish government.

In Honduras, news that military general who carried out the coup against Mel Zelaya in June, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, has a new gig. Vasquez will be taking over as the new manger of the state-run telecommmunications company, Empresa Hondurena de Telecomunicaciones (Hondutel). No word on what experience the military veteran has in telecommunications industry.

Finally, a few more opinions. Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo in the Miami Herald writes on the still crucial importance of "inter-hemispheric relations," focusing on growing discontent with democracy in the region due to ongoing social exclusion; the increasing presence of China and Iran in the region's economic affairs; and the still growing Latino population in the US. He writes, "n the past 15 years, the dramatic economic, social, and political changes in Latin America have prompted many attempts to redefine the foreign relations between the region's countries, as well as their stance toward the world. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, launched in Cancun two weeks ago, is the latest manifestation of this trend." He continues: "The frequent creation of these new institutions suggests that the hemisphere's long-established multi-lateral political body, the Organization of American States (OAS), must work harder to avoid becoming redundant."

Marifeli Perez-Stable, also in the Herald, has an opinion on dissidents in Cuba and the on-going hunger strikes being launched in protest against the Castro government. And in the LA Times, writer Ariel Dorfman says the Chilean quake and the realignment of Chilean politics, to the Right. The quake "vealed fractures in Chile's social and moral fabric -- the slow tsunami of persistent poverty and the cosmetic quality of the vaunted modernization that the country has undergone over the last decades," says Dorfman. Dorfman goes on: "this disaster can be seen as a wake-up call to Chile: Hello, Latin America! Or perhaps a test staged by Mother Earth, a challenge to rediscover the deepest sources of our misplaced identity. If so, the new president might well look to Chile's history for models to imitate or avoid." Of the Chilean past Dorfman higlights President Pedro Aguirre Cerda's response to the 1939 seismic catastrophe that left 30,000 dead by "enacting groundbreaking laws that brought social security, a public health system and important expenditures in education to an exploited populace, establishing the welfare state that has been so instrumental in Chile's development." And the case of President Pedro Montt, who, "just inaugurated, had to deal with the ruinous Valparaíso earthquake of 1906. The youth of the country rushed to rescue victims and discovered the real Chile, the festering Chile that had been hidden under the mirage of gentility, the Chile that Montt and many others of the privileged elite preferred to repress."

Two Notes: First, apologies for the lack of embedded links. I'm fighting some technical problems that forced me to just list the various articles mentioned below, as links. Also, I'll be out on vacation for the next week. Many thanks to colleagues David Holiday, Abigail Poe, and Adam Isacson who will be filling in on my behalf for that time. See you all the 22nd!



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/world/americas/11prexy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031001901.html?wprss=rss_world/centralamerica
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031003012.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/11/1523474/after-us-visit-preval-optimistic.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/world/americas/11chile.html?ref=americas
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/world/americas/11chile.html?pagewanted=2&ref=americas
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Pinera/Buscaremos/mejores/relaciones/vecinos/elpepuint/20100311elpepuint_3/Tes
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/10/world/AP-LT-Chile-Earthquake.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/10/1523464/bachelet-leaving-as-comforter.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/11/world/AP-LT-Mexico-Worlds-Richest.html?_r=1&ref=americas
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/10/world/AP-LT-Brazil-Cuba.html?ref=americas
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/11/1523462/brazilian-president-luiz-inacio.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791704575114141366419692.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews
http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20100310/jefe-del-golpe-honduras-nombrado-gerente-empresa-estatal-nuevo-gobierno/323135.shtml
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/11/1523477/conspiracy-against-democracy.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/11/1523481/business-as-usual.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dorfman11-2010mar11,0,6232967.story

Elections Must be a Priority for Haitian Government, Says Sec. Clinton

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed Rene Preval to Washington, meeting with the Haitian president privately and holding a public news conference. Clinton told reporters after the public event that holding legislative elections “as soon as appropriate” must be a top priority of the Haitian government so as to ensure its “stability and legitimacy.” Preval concurred, assuring those present that Haiti would be able to schedule such elections in a timely fashion so as to create an “orderly” transition. Having to resort to any sort of “provisional government,” Preval added, would be a “catastrophe” as it would lack legitimacy. The current president’s own term as president will come to an end next February.

Tuesday’s comments followed similar one’s by MINUSTAH’s chief, Edmond Mulet last week. But as CEPR’s Haiti Watch blog points out, in both statements there was little discussion of the serious flaws in the electoral system prior to the Jan. 12 quake. In particular, the Provisional Electoral Council had excluded the Fanmi Lavalas party from participating in scheduled Feb. elections, raising questions about that body’s independence.

Also on Haiti this morning, the UN honored the 101 fallen members of its Haiti staff yesterday in New York. The NY Times points out that those who were killed during the January quake included individuals from 30 countries, marking the largest single-day death toll for UN workers anywhere in the world. And from the Miami Herald, Jacqueline Charles reports from Haiti on the “politics of aid.” She writes, “The behind-the-scenes jockeying -- even as hundreds of thousands remain without adequate shelter -- is likely to intensify as President René Préval pleads for more aid from Washington this week and the international community prepares to meet in New York later this month to discuss Haiti's reconstruction plans.” The battle, Charles says, includes NGOs and UN agencies, all of whom want to take a leading role in helping to rebuild Haiti—and grab significant chunks of aid money that has and will continue to flow in from abroad. According to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive the problem is that everyone from international financial institutions to countries themselves want to prove their relevancy in the midst of Haiti's despair.

In other stories today:

• In an exclusive interview with the AP, Brazilian President Lula da Silva talks about last week’s meetings with Hillary Clinton, again stating his country’s strong opposition to a new round of sanctions against Iran. Such a move, Lula insists, could lead to war and would certainly push Iran further away from any sort of negotiations process. “We don't want to repeat in Iran what happened in Iraq. It's not prudent for the world, it's not prudent for Iran," Silva tells the news agency. The charismatic Brazilian president said the Iran standoff and the struggling Mideast peace process are “proof that the world's traditional powers aren't able to solve problems on their own.” “Who decided that the United States, France, England, China and Russia represent the collective aspirations of our planet, the new geopolitics, the new world order - with nations that were poor yesterday but today are in the midst of extraordinary economic growth?" he asks. On that point, Lula da Silva heads to the Middle East this week for visits to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian-governed West Bank. Lula also tells the AP that after 50 years as a smoker, he quit cold turkey some 40 days ago.
• AFP reports on rising crime and impunity in Venezuela with a piece citing recently released OVV statistics. Those numbers indicate that 16,047 persons were murdered in 2009, up from 14,800 in 2008 and 4500 one decade ago. In the capital of Caracas there are some 140 homicides per 100,000. For a point of comparison, Bogota registers just 18 per 100,000. “At the present, the people do not have a reason to not rob and commit violent crimes and the government believes that hiding the figures can create an illusory sense of security,” says Roberto Leon Briceno Leon, director of the Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia. Sources close to the government insist that they are concerned about the rising threat of crime and violence. However, Briceno Leon continues, the government’s treatment of the issue too often politicizes crime in an unhelpful way.
• Violent crime is also on the rise in Central America, an EFE report notes. Specifically, crimes against women and femicide in the subregion continue to rise. A new report carried out by the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID) and the Consejo de Ministras de la Mujer de Centroamérica (COMMCA) says cases of femicide have doubled in the last 6 years, with the number of incidents in three countries alone (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) having risen from 1000 to just over 2000 in that period.
• Human Rights Watch presented its 5^th annual report on Mexico to the UN this week and said its is “disappointing” that the government of Felipe Calderon has not recognized nor confronted ongoing impunity for violations committed by the Mexican military.
• As Chilean President Michelle Bachelet prepares to leave office, she reflected on her term and her government’s recent response to the Chilean quake on national TV. Interestingly, a poll conducted both before and after the quake shows Ms. Bachelet’s overall popularity remains incredibly high, at around 84% approval.
• El Salvador’s Mauricio Funes, a visitor to Washington D.C. this week, challenges Bachelet as the region’s most popular head of state—despite seeing his approval ratings drop slightly from 88 to 83% in recent months. On his meeting with President Obama and other lawmakers, the Center for Democracy in the Americas and its El Salvador consultant, Linda Garrett write at the Huffington Post that the US should care about El Salvador because, unlike Salvadoran government’s past, the Funes administration is showing how to be an ally of the US while charting its own, independent foreign policy. “Whereas the Bush Administration could count on former Salvadoran governments to send troops to Iraq and in essence, as one analyst said, ‘to act as the lapdog of the State Department,’ President Funes is attempting to build a balanced, independent foreign policy,” Garrett writes. She continues: “From immigration to security to economics, the two presidents clearly share great interests and opportunities, but at a higher level, what is most remarkable is that they are meeting at all” given the recent history of US-El Salvador relations.”
• Finally today, two other opinions. In the Miami Herald, an opinion on why the Cuba travel ban should be ended by Elena Freyre of the Foundation for the Normalization of US-Cuba Relations. And at The New Republic, Chavez critic and blogger Francisco Toro on Spain, Venezuela, and the recent allegations that the Venezuelan military has provided training to the FARC and ETA. Toro writes: “By exposing a possible link between the Chávez government and an international terror conspiracy, the indictment is a particularly hot potato in the lap of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose warm relations with Venezuela's strong man have yielded invaluable commercial advantages for Spanish multinationals.” For Toro, this puts the Spanish in a bind. “Protect Spanish investment in Venezuela, and you’re soft on ETA, but make a principled stand, and you put hundreds of Spanish jobs at risk. Signs so far indicate the government will swallow hard and continue to placate Venezuela.”

IACHR Latest to Condemn Ongoing Rights Abuses in Honduras

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) became the most recent body to condemn ongoing rights abuses being carried out against anti-coup activists in Honduras. On Monday the IACHR said at least three members of the resistance movement were murdered in the last month while numerous other anti-coup activists have been the target of “kidnappings (at least 2 confirmed cases), arbitrary detentions (more than 50 confirmed cases), acts of torture (at least 8 confirmed cases), sexual violations (at least 2 confirmed cases), and illegal raids (at least 1 confirmed case).” Further, the IACHR says, children of resistance members have been the latest group to be subjected to violence with two children of activists murdered recently. Here’s the IACHR in its own words: “The Commission observes with dismay that it appears that sons and daughters of leaders of the Resistance Front are being killed, kidnapped, attacked, and threatened as a strategy to silence the activists.” The graphic of these acts of violence are retold by the inter-American rights commission, and the IACHR calls on the Honduran government to “adopt urgent measures to guarantee the rights to life, humane treatment, and personal liberty.”

The statement, following a similar one by Human Rights Watch last week, is significant given Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement late last week that the US is set to restart both development and military assistance. Further, in a country plagued by violent crime, the fact that the IACHR singles out anti-coup resistance members as the specific targets of violence is evidence that the country is far from having resolved the deep political divisions of the last 8 plus months.

That point was made evident in another way this week by former president Mel Zelaya’s visit to Venezuela where he was named the head of PetroCaribe’s new political council [for an interesting piece about PeteroCaribe’s financial woes, click here; for another one on how PetroCaribe has provided economic stability in the Caribbean, click here]. It was Zelaya’s growing relationship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that sparked anger among many coup backers in June and those tensions appear to remain. AFP reports that President Pepe Lobo denounced Zelaya’s call for the international community to not reintegrate Honduras this week, saying Zelaya “insists that a Honduran people who have suffered greatly already continue to be inflicted with pain.”

To other stories this morning:

· In Washington, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes was at the White House Monday for a face-to-face meeting with President Barack Obama. BBC Mundo has a report on the hour-long meeting, writing that Obama created Funes with a “bienvenido” before talking bilateral trade and regional security (drug trafficking and organized crime, specifically). Obama also praised Funes for his “wise and pragmatic” stand vis a vis the coup in Honduras and the quake in Haiti. For his part, Funes said the U.S. should not be blamed for the current state of his country, adding that “we are looking for the U.S. to become a strategic partner…not a junior or senior partner but an equal and effective partner.” Specifically, Funes went on, he said he sought resources for Salvadoran small and medium sized businesses so that they might improve the economic situation in El Salvador.” Today Funes meets with leaders of various multilateral agencies as well as congressional leaders.

· On Colombia via the news site Latin America News Dispatch, word on the next major case to appear before that country’s Constitutional Court: the controversial U.S.-Colombia bases deal. The court will decide whether the agreement, authorized last October and set to be implemented in May, will have to be approved by the Colombian Congress before going into effect. LAND writes, “It is illegal under the Colombian Constitution to allow foreign soldiers into the country without congressional approval (Article 173).” But “the Álvaro Uribe administration has said that the agreement with the U.S. was not a new one, but rather an extension of an existing, decades-old military pact and, consequently, should not require separate scrutiny.” AFP adds that the court has taken up the case at the petition of a group of lawyers (the “José Alvear Restrepo” group) who also say Uribe ignored the “advice of the State Council -- the highest court on administrative matters, which also urged that the congress take up the agreement before it was signed.”

· Meanwhile, Monday also marked the unveiling of former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos as Uribe’s handpicked successor. Uribe’s Partido Social de la Unidad selected Santos as its choice for late May elections. Santos accepted saying he would “defend the party’s historic legacy.” That “legacy” is being praised by a few conservative commentators this week who frequently hold up Colombia as a poster child for a successful U.S. counternarcotics/counterinsurgency partnership. In the Weekly Standard, Vanessa Neumann has a long report from Bogotá on the matter, saying the country’s Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) process is the “envy of other countries trying to extract themselves from civil wars.” She says others refer to it as “the Rolls Royce” of such program. And in the Washington Post this morning, Robert Kagan and Aroop Mukharij praise not only Uribe’s security policies but also the constitutional court’s decision to not grant him a chance at a third term. But, they write: “Uribe is the ultimate hero of this story. Whatever his personal desires, he allowed the court to do its job without interference. Whatever his accomplishments, including defeating terrorists and giving Colombians hope, his greatest gift to his people will be a society and political system based not on the power and appeal of an individual but on the rule of law.”

· Rene Preval arrived in Washington Monday. He’s expected to meet with President Obama Wednesday, says the AP. According to President Preval, he will discuss the next phase of the reconstruction process with the US President: job creation and the potential long term risk to food production in the country being caused by food aid. Also on Haiti, Paul Collier has an opinion in the Independent on the need to rethink the NGO model in the country. He writes of a new state-NGO “hybrid agency, run jointly by government and donors. “Its function,” argues Collier, “would be to take in money from the donors and disburse it to the frontline – the NGOs, churches and local communities that actually run schools and clinics. The core job of the agency would be to monitor the comparative performance of these frontline providers, continuously shifting money to the more cost-effective.”

· New poll numbers are out ahead of 2011 presidential elections in Peru. Lima mayor Luis Castaneda still leads the pack, followed by Keiko Fujimori, Ollanta Humala, and Alejandro Toledo. Notable, however, is the large number he say they prefer to simply annul their vote rather than elect any of the potential candidates (nearly 10% already).

· Three notes on Brazil in the international arena. The LA Times has more on the memo of understanding signed between the US and Brazil last week related to climate change and cooperative efforts to fight deforestation. The BBC reports Brazil is taking the US to task on cotton subsidies by instituting a new round of sanctions against a variety of US goods. The move has been approved by the WTO in a somewhat surprising decision. And from IPS, a report on Brazil’s ambitious plan (Plan 2022) to launch the country onto a new political and economic path. One of its main goals: continued progress against economic and social inequalities.

· Colum Lynch at the FP’s UN Turtle Bay blog, says three Latin Americans could be in the running to for the position of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Those individuals are Chile’s current UN ambassador Heraldo Munoz, Chile’s UN ambassador to Geneva, Carlos Portales, and Mexico’s former ambassador for human rights and democracy, Marieclaire Acosta.

· The Miami Herald reports on how Cuba is getting tough on hunger strikers after the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

· Finally, a few more opinions today. Andres Oppenheimer on the movement of drug cartels south from Mexico to Central America. He writes: “Washington may have to consider decriminalizing personal marijuana consumption -- as former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia proposed last year -- to free massive resources that could be used to fight more dangerous drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, on a hemisphere-wide basis.” And Matt Kennard at the Guardian on why Bolivia under Evo Morales a “beacon of hope” for those seeking a form of “a government and....a grassroots movement, committed to economic and gender equality, anti-racism, free speech and every other ideal the left should hold dear.” He also contrasts Bolivia with Venezuela. “The texture of the modern Bolivian revolution is different to that of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela. It is a much more bottom-up revolution, and Morales is kept on a tight leash by the democratic movement that was behind his rise to power in a way Chávez isn't.”

Preval Arrives in Washington for Meetings with US Lawmakers

Embattled Haitian President Rene Preval arrives in Washington today and will ask US lawmakers for over $1 billion in aid to help his country rebuild. The Miami Herald, who interviewed Preval over the weekend, says the Haitian president will also press the US to continue supporting the immediate needs of the country, as frustration rises about how little of the monies pledged thus far have gone directly to the Haitian government.

The trip to Washington will be Preval’s first since the Jan. 12 quake and comes three weeks before international representatives gather in New York for a UN conference which is expected to define the terms of international assistance to Haiti. “What's most important is the philosophy of the reconstruction,” Preval tells the paper, adding “it's not just reconstruct Port-au-Prince. It's rebuild Haiti.” For its part, the US Congress is currently working on the passage of an emergency spending package for Haiti—a bill Sec. of State Hillary Clinton said she expects to come up for a vote in Congress “in the next few weeks.” This after the US has already spent an estimated $712 million on relief efforts thus far ($427 million via USAID and $285 million through DOD). Additionally, the US Congress will be taking up another Haiti-related resolution Wednesday, which “presses lenders to forgive the country's debt and distribute any new aid in the form of grants.” But some international aid experts say this will be just one small piece of the larger assistance Haiti is going to need moving forward. “Haiti will need far more long-term development assistance and trade income than debt relief,” Thomas Hart of the ONE campaign recently told Congress. “Debt cancellation is a small but important piece of a complex puzzle.”

In other Haiti news this weekend, the Wall Street Journal has a fascinating piece about the continued absence of the Haitian state in the country’s burgeoning tent cities. In particular, the piece looks at the creation of how social committees have formed within the camps “to secure food, water and supplies in high demand from international aid organization.” “We knew we wouldn't receive any assistance unless we formed a committee,” says Yasmine Beaupin, a 38 year old hairdresser-turned-president of the Impasse Osseille encampment which is home to more than 2,000 displaced Haitians. “There is no government but us,” Beaupin continues in describing the formation of a six person executive committee in the camp which oversees three sub committees representing different sectors of the camp. The Miami Herald also reports on how rural Haitians are pushing for decentralization of resources and power away from Port-au-Prince; there’s news on the mass exit of US troops from the country as UN peacekeepers and the Haitian police take over security duties; other reports examine the exodus of emergency relief doctors, the New York Times has a piece focusing on the future of Haitian youth and the ever-more unlikely prospect of putting children back in school by April 1; and the Washington Post reports on the monumental task of knocking down crumbling buildings around Haiti before rebuilding. That process of rubble removal, says the Post, could take as long as one year and cost upwards of $1 billion itself.

To other stories this weekend:

· After speaking at the US-backed “Pathways to Prosperity” meeting on democracy and open markets in Costa Rica, Hillary Clinton ended her five-day tour of Latin America Friday with what the New York Times calls a “lightning trip” to Guatemala. There she promised Central American presidents more help in the fight against drug cartels, although few specifics were discussed on the form that support might take. The Washington Post highlights Ms. Clinton’s emphasis on “weeding out corruption,” particularly after last week’s arrest of Guatemala’s national police chief and anti-drug czar. Clinton also called on more countries to reestablish relations with Honduras, saying the US would be restoring more than $30 million in both military and development assistance that was suspended in the wake of the June coup [The IMF also announced this weekend it too would be restoring its relationship with the government of Pepe Lobo, allowing Honduras to access $160 million in previously frozen funds]. It’s this call which is drawing criticism from some human rights advocates, progressives, and a group of nine members of congress who wrote to Sec. Clinton last week. In The Progressive Matthew Rothschild points out that Human Rights Watch wrote last week that abuses against anti-coup activists continue unabated. Rothschild writes: “Hillary Clinton’s embrace of Pepe Lobo is a disgrace, and it undermines President Obama’s rhetoric about establishing ‘a new chapter’ in U.S.-Latin American relations.”

· Meanwhile, the target of the June coup, former Honduran president Mel Zelaya began his own tour of the region last week. His first stopover: Caracas where the Venezuela-led regional energy consortium, PetroCaribe, named Mr. Zelaya the first head of its newly formed “political council.” Venezuelan foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, described the “political council” as a body designed for the “defense of the independence and democracy in the PetroCaribe continent.” PetroCaribe currently includes 18 member states who are allowed to buy up to 185,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela at a discount rate. Members only pay 40-80% upfront with the remainder paid over 25 years at 1% interest. Additionally, says the report, “members can pay part of the cost with other products ‘in trade’ to Venezuela, such as bananas, rice, and sugar.” In his spare time, Zelaya will also be penning a memoir about the coup.

· On Chile, the New York Times says this morning that 72% of Santiago residents are dissatisfied with President Michelle Bachelet’s response to the quake in Concepción, saying the president was “late and inefficient in delivering aid and in re-establishing order.” The poll numbers were published in Santiago’s conservative daily El Mercurio this weekend. In an interview with the Times, published Saturday, Bachelet denied charges that her government had hesitated in the wake of the disaster. In particular, Bachelet rejected charges that her own difficult past with the Chilean military affected her decision to call on the army to take over internal security. This is “speculation that has nothing to do with reality,” Bachelet said. “Here there was no delay. I don’t have any problems, particularly ideological problems, making decisions that warrant the armed forces to take control of certain functions, while civilian authorities take control of others.” Also, reports this weekend about how much written about “looters” were returning stolen goods in and around Concepción so as to avoid being arrested by Chilean police who granted a brief amnesty to those who returned what they had stolen. And some $59 million was raised for disaster relief during a benefit concert held in Santiago Saturday.

· In the Miami Herald, a report has one take on the legacy of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, in a quite positive light. His “singular style may have changed Colombia politics and policies for good,” says the paper. “By routing rebels from major urban areas, convincing paramilitaries to demobilize, the violence that had Colombia on the brink of becoming a failed state abated. His can-do attitude in a country where many had been convinced that defeating leftist rebels and reining in paramilitaries was impossible won Uribe the gratitude of millions,” says journalist Sibylla Brodzinsky.

· Meanwhile, at the Washington Office on Latin America, a press release from the International Pre-Electoral Observation Mission led by various US and European NGOs, paints a quite different picture of the country. “The objective of the mission was to compile from the various sectors that form part of the electoral process, civil society and governmental institutions their concerns and analysis on the forthcoming March [legislative] elections,” the release begins. And through a month of investigation, the Mission writes, there is “alarm over the human rights situation in the country and the grave violations of these rights on the part of legal and illegal armed groups and narco-traffickers to life in Antioquia, Santander, Córdoba and Valle del Cauca,” fears about freedom of expression and electoral crimes, and a “huge gap between the formal aspects of the society found in Colombian institutions and the daily reality of the general public.” A full report from the Mission is forthcoming.

· Other pieces to note today, an interesting LA Times report on how a fund created under NAFTA to help Mexican farmers compete with the US agriculturists is being siphoned off by drug traffickers. “Today, the fund -- far from helping the neediest -- is providing large financial subsidies to the families of notorious drug traffickers and several senior government officials, including the agriculture minister,” says the LAT. Indeed, the Procampo program’s failure, argue many Mexican officials, are driving many subsistence farmers into the production of illegal crops, particularly marijuana and opium poppy. And, an LAT investigation discovers, one of the program’s biggest recipients have been allies of traffickers like Victor Emilio Cazares, a close associate of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman who received more than $100,000 from Procampo to subsidize his raising of cattle last year.

· The Catholic Church in Mexico is attacking Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard for his positions on crime, public transportation, and now abortion and gay marriage. A total of just 59 Mexican soldiers were convicted or sentenced for human rights abuses between December 2006 and February 2010, the Mexican Defense Secretariat recently announced. For some perspective, the National Human Rights Commission has received 3,430 complaints about military rights abuses over that time period.

· And three opinions this weekend. In the Miami Herald, an editorial says Brazil’s position on Iran is wrong, writing that Lula’s words “give Tehran's mullahs solace and comfort.” Mary Anastasia O’Grady at the WSJ writes on corruption, foreign aid, and former Salvadoran president Tony Saca. And an opinion by former DR ambassador to the OAS, Roberto Alvarez, says José Miguel Insulza deserves a second term at the OAS. Alvarez writes:

“Insulza's record should be the basis of his reelection. He brought the OAS a renewed leadership, allowing it to play a leading role in, among others: the resolution of conflicts, such as between Colombia and Ecuador and Guatemala and Belize, and in Haiti, Nicaragua and Bolivia; the sending of successful observer missions to more than 50 elections throughout the hemisphere; and the promotion of greater regional cooperation aimed at reducing illegal drug trafficking.”

Chile and the Military: Turning the Page?

After last week’s earthquake in Chile, the military has become the center of political attention after two decades of “keeping a low profile.” This according to the Wall Street Journal this morning which says troops “virtually occupy” the country’s second largest city of Concepción, at the epicenter of the disaster. The report goes on to say that tensions have flared up between some civilian and military leaders. The navy, for example, has come under heat from many politicians for giving mixed information about the possibility of a tsunami following Saturday’s earthquake while others criticize the Air Force for moving too slowly to help government officials assess the extent of the damage. Others criticize President Michelle Bachelet herself for moving too slowly to call up the military, showing the still deep divisions that exist between right and left over the use of the armed forces in the domestic sphere.

The New York Times continues the story from there, maintaining that citizens in quake-affected areas have in large part supported the presence of the Chilean military. “…Five days since Chile was shaken by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake, one of the worst natural disasters in its history, the military’s relationship with the country’s people was turning a new page,” the Times’ Alexei Barrionuevo writes. According to the report, the military is still enforcing an 18 hour curfew in Concepción, leaving only the hours of 12pm to 6pm open for residents to be out on the streets legally. Also from the NYT, the Chilean government announced Wednesday that it had significantly over-estimated the death toll from Saturday’s disaster. Emergency management officials now say just 279 individuals have been confirmed dead, down from earlier figures of just over 800. However, that announcement was overshadowed by a powerful aftershock yesterday, registered at a magnitude of 6.3 and just miles from the epicenter of last week’s quake. And finally, from the LA Times, a report looks at how president-elect Sebastian Pinera is “already operating like a man in charge.” Pinera will assume the presidency next week, but, the paper writes, he is already in the public eye, “directing relief efforts, touring disaster sites, appointing Cabinet members -- and gently criticizing the way his soon-to-be predecessor has handled the disaster.”

In other stories:

· Sec. of State Hillary Clinton wraps up her Latin American tour today in Central America. The Washington Office on Latin America has a great backgrounder on the major issues that are atop Sec. Clinton’s agenda as she meets with regional leaders. Among those issues are citizen security throughout the sub-region, cooperation with the Guatemalan military, attacks on human rights defenders, and the situation in Honduras. On that last point, WOLA says “Secretary Clinton should make it clear to President Lobo that human rights violations must stop immediately and that there needs to be a functioning Truth Commission in order for U.S. aid to be fully restored to Honduras.” However, arriving in Costa Rica Thursday Clinton announced the U.S. will restore bilateral aid to Honduras and urged other Latin American nations to restore ties as well. “We think Honduras has made important and necessary steps that deserve recognition and normalization of relations,” said Ms. Clinton. She added that a letter had been sent to the US Congress announcing the change in policy. Addressing those countries who continue to resist recognizing the Lobo government, Clinton said “I am not sure what they are waiting for, but it’s their right to wait.” Clinton will be in Guatemala today, meeting with President Alvaro Colom as well as Pepe Lobo, Mauricio Funes, and Leonel Fernandez of the DR. For his part, Mel Zelaya began his own regional tour Thursday also, arriving first in Caracas to meet with Hugo Chavez.

· Venezuela and Hugo Chavez were targeted by Clinton while she finished her stopover in Brasilia Wednesday. There Clinton said the US was “very worried about the behavior of Venezuela,” specifically highlighting what she called the slow but consistent limiting of freedoms in the country. This, said Sec. Clinton, includes issues of democracy, freedom of press, and private property rights. Hugo Chavez responded to Clinton’s words, saying it was an attempt by the US to divide the region. Chavez has also spoken out in recent days against a Spanish probe investigating connections between government officials, ETA, and the FARC. Meanwhile, the constitutional council of the Venezuelan Supreme Court also decided Thursday to re-instate the mayor of Sucre in the state of Zulia. Elected in 2008, the mayor had been removed last week by the court for failing to pay $292 in local taxes. And interesting statistics recently released by the Observatorio Venezolano de la Violencia (OVV) indicate that impunity surrounds some 91% of homicides committed in the country over the last three years. According to the OVV, in 1998 for every 100 homicides, 110 suspects were arrested. Between 2007 and 2009, that number has fallen to an amazing 9 arrests per 100 homicides! Just last year, police arrested only 1,497 individuals after beginning a total of 16,047 homicide investigations.

· On Haiti, the Miami Herald reports this morning on what it calls a “lack of available land” for those displaced again by temporary camps threatened now by flooding. Also, acting UN mission chief in Haiti, Edmond Mulet, tells the AP that he feels Haiti must proceed with its presidential elections, scheduled for later this year. President Rene Preval has said he plans to step down when his term expires next February. The constitution prevents him from seeking another term and, says Mulet, “I can assure you he doesn't want to stay” in office beyond the end of his term.

· In Colombia’s Semana, an exclusive interview with OAS Sec. General José Miguel Insulza who responds to his critics, particularly a growing list of detractors in Washington. Responding to the criticisms of the Washington Post in particular, Insulza indicates his frustration: “Excuse me, but this [the OAS] is a collective organization, an organization of states. I am its Secretary General and not the President of the Americas!”

· From WOLA again, a new report, “Arms-R-Us: South America Goes Shopping,” on new military purchases being made by various Latin American countries,

· And with opinions this morning: with new polls indicating Uribe-ally Juan Manuel Santos has an early lead ahead of May’s presidential vote in Colombia, Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy writes on the ruling against Uribe’s re-election bid at Foreign Policy. He cites the recent poll numbers which put Santos in the lead, followed by left-leaning anti-uribista, Gustavo Petro. But, says Isacson, the most interesting candidate to watch is Sergio Fajardo, the center-left former mayor of Medellín,” seen by many as both charismatic and responsible for a drop in that city’s crime rate under his watch. “As the on-the-ground reality continues to evolve rapidly, the candidate who promises to mimic Álvaro Uribe most closely may not be Colombia's best choice, or the United States' best ally,” Isacson argues. In the Guardian, CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot this week writes critically of Sec. Clinton’s Latin America tour, particularly the secretary’s words about the Honduran crisis having been resolved successfully. Paul Krugman at the New York Times’ blog joins his voice against those who claim Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys are to credit for the lack of destruction Saturday’s quake caused in Chile. At the Huffington Post, a piece by Juan Méndez on Brazil’s prison system and a new International Bar Association report that “highlights the failures of the country's criminal justice system to provide fair and timely trials and access to lawyers for the thousands of people sitting in pre-trial detention.” Anya Landau French of the New America Foundation responds to the Washington Post’s editorial on US Cuba policy after the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, writing that the paper “overlooked many Cuban dissidents' views that U.S. sanctions harm the people, not the government, of Cuba.” Another Cuba-related opinion by Mauricio Claver-Carone of the US-Cuba Democracy PAC at the Miami Herald, against ending the travel ban. And Council on Foreign Relations’ visiting fellow, Matias Spektor, with more on Hillary Clinton’s visit to Brazil and specifically some thoughts on what Brazil’s positioning on Iran signifies. Among his points, Spektor writes:

“…Brazil's attitude shouldn't be seen as a bout of anti-Americanism either. As a major beneficiary of collective security as we know it since 1945, Brazil is not a challenger of the American worldview. But as an emerging country with a long history of frailty and dependence, it seeks protection and hedging against great-power use of international norms to impose their will on weaker nations.”