The Agonist - Latin America

Where God and the Devil Wheel Like Vultures: Report from El Paso

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:29:30 -0800

Tom Russell nails it on the head. Worth a read to summarize the current Wild West.

I’ll watch it all go down from Ardovino’s Desert Crossing, the great bar and restaurant which sits up near Mt. Cristo Rey, overlooking the lights of El Paso. (Okay, there are a few good bars here.)Trains roll cross the mountain at happy hour and border patrol trucks chase illegals through these desperate, yucca-choked rocks and rills. Over yonder the ugly black border wall snakes across the sandy hills. The wall is our knee-jerk attempt to intimidate Mexican illegals who want to do the dirty work we shun. But this is still the old west, amigo. Those class equations have always been such. The Chinese built the railroads with a shotgun at their head, and their opium was always available in the back of the chop suey joints and whore houses. The “greasers” and “chinks” did the dirty work; and those red devil Apaches raided our horse camps until we sent Geronimo down to Florida to chill out. We’re getting it under control, ain’t we? It’s the coked-up, Manifest Destiny politics of Methland.

Where God and the Devil Wheel Like Vultures: Report from El Paso

Honduras' ousted leader declares pact 'totally dead'

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:08:11 -0800

Tracy Wilkinson | Mexico City | November 7

LAT - Manuel Zelaya says the accord to end the national crisis collapsed after the de facto rulers formed a new 'reconciliation government' without him.

The political crisis in Honduras deepened Friday after ousted President Manuel Zelaya declared "totally dead" a U.S.-brokered agreement that he had believed would restore him to power.

Zelaya, deposed in a military-backed coup four months ago after ignoring a court order to stop efforts to hold a referendum on revising the nation's constitution, said the accord collapsed after the de facto rulers formed a new "reconciliation government" without him.

The week-old deal had sought to bring representatives of Zelaya and his enemies into a transitional government as a way to ease the crisis and legitimize elections scheduled for Nov. 29.

"The accord is a dead letter," Zelaya said on a Honduran radio station. "There is no sense in continuing to fool the Honduran people."

He called on supporters to take to the streets and to boycott the vote, which he deemed a "fraud" designed to "whitewash" the coup.

Ida batters resort, strengthens into hurricane

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:22:59 -0800

MANAGUA, Nicaragua | November 5

NBC News and news services - Ida strengthened into Category 1 hurricane as it approached the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua Thursday and was set to make landfall later in the day, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Heavy rains dumped on Nicaragua's eastern coast. Ida also uprooted trees, knocked down power lines and forced the evacuation of 300 people from the popular resort of Corn Island.

Much of the island had lost its phone service, said Lt. Col. Reinaldo Carrion, the civil defense chief in Bluefields, the city nearest to the island.

New row over Colombia-US accord

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:03:29 -0800

Nov 5

BBC - Colombian opposition groups have reacted angrily after details of a controversial military deal with the US were made public.

Under the 10-year deal, the US military will not only have access to military bases, but also be able to use major international civilian airports.

US personnel and defence contractors will also enjoy diplomatic immunity.

President Alvaro Uribe says the agreement will help rid Colombia of drugs gangs and left-wing rebel groups.

But leading opposition senator Gustavo Petro, of the left-wing PDA party, said the deal amounted to a virtual US occupation of Colombia.

The accord was signed last Friday but full details were only made public on Tuesday.

A Remarkable Instance of Corruption and Violence in Mexico

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:58:42 -0800

First off, Mauricio Fernandez, the mayor of San Pedro Garza Garcia, an exclusive community near Monterrey, announced as he was being sworn in for a new term that a feared drug cartel capo who had been threatening him had been found dead in Mexico City. Only one problem, the body hadn't been found yet. That would take another 3 1/2 hours. And it wouldn't be identified for two more days.

The mayor's explanation once the story erupted as a scandal in normally blase Mexico -- the DEA tipped him off:

When pressed, Fernandez said U.S. authorities tipped him off that somebody intercepted cartel communications and learned Saldana was planning to kill him, and he said unspecified intelligence sources told him Saldana was dead. Paul Knierim, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman, said Tuesday he couldn't comment on Fernandez's situation, but said American agents routinely coordinate with Mexican investigators trying to crack down on cartels.

Mexican farmworker activist, 14 others slain

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:46:18 -0800

Tracy Wilkinson | Mexico City | Nov 1

LA Times - A flamboyant farmworker organizer who called himself a modern-day Emiliano Zapata has been slain in a brazen ambush that also killed 14 members of his family and staff, officials said Saturday.

Prosecutors in the border state of Sonora, where the slayings occurred, said they were investigating a number of possible motives. Sonora, like much of Mexico, has been hit by a wave of killings tied to drug-trafficking gangs.

The union leader, Margarito Montes Parra, was killed in the southern part of Sonora bordering the state of Sinaloa, a major center for the production and transport of marijuana and heroin.

The farmers whom Montes represented often find themselves trapped in the drug war, with traffickers forcing them to work illicit crops. But Montes also had chalked up numerous enemies in tumultuous land disputes over more than two decades.

Montes, his wife and two children were traveling in a small convoy with at least 11 other relatives and staff members to a rural hacienda Friday afternoon when they were ambushed by several assailants armed with large-caliber weapons, investigators said. All 15 were shot to death, they said.

Red Cross workers arrived at the scene to find bullet-riddled bodies on the side of the road. There were reports that three people in the group had survived.

What lies beneath the rainforest

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:35:05 -0700

Oct 31

The Independent - You want the Amazon to survive? Then pay us not to pump the oil, says Ecuador. Huw Hennessy in Quito reports on a bold initiative

The tropical rainforest in the eastern lowlands of Ecuador assaults the senses: the sunlight dazzles the eyes, the heat is so fierce that within seconds one's clothes are soaked in sweat. Then there are the sounds: a hypnotic symphony of frogs, crickets and other insects and birds which continues unabated day and night. There are sudden glimpses of the jungle's abundant wildlife: a spectacular flash of a blue morpho butterfly at the river's edge, a flock of green parakeets screeching.

This stunning region, which covers more than a third of Ecuador's area, almost the size of England, and which is one of the world's richest biospheres, with a huge diversity of animals and plants, some found nowhere else on Earth, faces a double threat: from the logging industry, which would strip it bare, and from the oil industry, which for nearly 40 years has been exploiting the huge resources of crude beneath the soil. Now, however, Ecuador is betting it can keep what is left of the oil in the ground and hang onto its biosphere into the bargain.

The South American country has learned the hard way that oil brings human misery and environmental devastation along with billions in export earnings. Every new oil field is an invasion that brings tens of thousands of outsiders into the forest's heart, polluting the air, soil and water, destroying wildlife, and assaulting the support systems of indigenous tribes, which can lead to their extermination. And the damage is not confined to the immediate vicinity of the wells.

The Via Auca is the main highway cutting through the Ecuadorean Amazonia region, and it has been a lifeline of the oil industry for nearly 40 years, slicing through the countryside like a badly healed wound, the roadside lined with hellish flares, murky waste pits and corroded pipelines. Accidents involving the pipelines are frequent, and their consequences harrowing. On the far side of the town of Dayuma, which sprang up as an oil workers' shantytown and is still riddled with crime and prostitution, one of the ageing pipelines has ruptured, sending a jet of oil shooting 30 metres into the air, staining the vegetation black all around.

The sickly stench of crude oil is overwhelming in the midday tropical heat. A house and a field across the road have also been soaked by the filthy gusher. Sebastian Ortiz, whose elderly father owns the simple wooden house by the roadside on the edge of the jungle, points out where the oil has drenched the field and seeped into the ground. Petrobel, one of many oil companies now operating in the region, has said it will pay his father US$5,000 (£3,000) towards the clean-up costs. But Ortiz says: "I don't know when he will be paid, or even if it is still safe for him to carry on living here."

Pollution is only one of the many ills that the oil business brings with it. Fernando Moreno, an anthropologist with the Ministry of the Environment, has been monitoring the oil industry's effect on the local community for years. "The people have become beggars" he says. "They have become accustomed to demanding whatever they need and more from the oil companies, just because they are in the same territory. Weighing up the benefits and drawbacks of the oil companies, I think it would be better not to have them. They lead to many bad habits, they make people avaricious, they increase the differences between people – and they are a source of contamination: for the land, the water and the people themselves."

A Deal in Honduras?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:13:59 -0700

There may be a deal to bring the coup in Honduras to an end. From the Latin American Herald Tribune:

Negotiators for ousted Honduras President Manuel Zelaya and current Honduras President Roberto Micheletti have reached an agreement to bring an end to a months-long political standoff triggered by the June 28 events that led to the departure of Zelaya.

The deal, set to be signed on Friday, leaves it up to Congress to decide on Zelaya's reinstatement -- with a recommendation from the Supreme Court -- and also includes several points contained in a proposal made by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in his role as mediator in the crisis.

The deal could allow the ousted president to serve out the remaining three months of his term. If Congress agrees, control of the army would shift to the electoral court, and the presidential election set for Nov. 29 would be recognized by both sides.

Al Giordano is less sanguine about the deal:

US officials and commercial media organizations are popping champagne corks prematurely over a reported US-brokered “deal” to return Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to (limited) power, but the two sides that reportedly signed the agreement already disagree over what exactly it says.
...

Micheletti’s claim that a Congressional vote to restore Zelaya would require Supreme Court authorization is a flat out lie, according to a source with Zelaya inside his Brazilian Embassy refuge in Tegucigalpa: “That is what the golpistas have put out, but that is NOT the accord… The Supreme Court gives its non-binding opinion to the Congress, but the key is that all of this takes time, time that the golpistas want to keep taking.”
...

The real problem could be the authoritarian Supreme Court. Micheletti’s invention of a non-existent clause in the agreement, one that requires the court’s approval of it, points to where the stalling tactic will come from. This is the same Supreme Court that carried out the coup d’etat on June 28 and has micro-managed the regime’s affairs all summer and fall on a level that would not be appropriate or legal in most countries. Because Honduras’ 1982 Constitution is such a self-conflicted document with many articles that contradict each other, the court has been cherry-picking which laws to discard and which to interpret, often badly.

Colombia, US to sign controversial deal on military bases this week

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:34:12 -0700

Washington | Oct 27/Updated

DPA - Colombia and the United States are planning to sign 'at the end of the week' a controversial military deal, Colombian Defence Minister Gabriel Silva said Tuesday in Washington.

The deal whereby Colombia is set to allow the United States use of seven military bases on Colombian soil was announced this summer, although it has yet to be signed by Washington and Bogota.

The US-Colombian plan has drawn sharp criticism from Latin American leaders who worry that the US presence could threaten the sovereignty of neighbouring countries and promote meddling in internal affairs.

Bogota and Washington have insisted that the bases will be used only to combat drug-trafficking and terrorism within Colombia's borders

** Colombia counters critics over U.S. bases row ~ UPI
** A Summer Fling in South America: US Bases and a Weapons Race?(PDF) ~ISN
** Colombian Government Irked Judicial Opinion on Base Deal Was Leaked ~ Latin American herald Tribune
** Colombia: Trusted American Ally? ~ DCProgressive
** U.S. Aid Must Leverage Reforms, Rights Groups Urge ~ IPS

UPDATE OCT 30: Colombia, U.S. sign military base deal: U.S. official

Honduras deal: Ousted President Zelaya can return to office

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:26:25 -0700

Sara Miller Llana | Mexico City | Oct 30

CSM - Late Thursday, interim Honduras leader Roberto Micheletti announced he would accept a deal that would restore ousted President Zelaya and respect Nov. 29 election date.

After four months of failed talks and false hopes, is the Honduran crisis finally coming to an end?

Late Thursday, after a group of US diplomats rushed to Honduras this week to restart negotiations that had broken down – yet again – interim President Roberto Micheletti announced that his negotiators will sign a deal as early as Friday that could include the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya to the presidency.

After months of accusations by the international community that the Micheletti administration – which assumed office just hours after Mr. Zelaya was deposed June 28 – was stalling on negotiations, Mr. Micheletti said his willingness to reach a deal is a "significant concession" on his part.

"I have authorized my negotiating team to sign a deal that marks the beginning of the end of the country's political situation," he said in a statement.

Respect Nov. 29 election date

The deal would include the creation of a powersharing government and the promise on both sides that presidential elections slated for Nov. 29 will be respected. It also would establish a truth commission and signal an end to international sanctions – slapped on Honduras by countries, including the US –in protest of Zelaya's removal from office.

These were the original points agreed upon in a plan first unveiled by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and later in negotiations launched by the Organization of American States (OAS). Both efforts broke down over the issue of Zelaya's return to the presidency.

The difference now is that Micheletti is signaling that Zelaya could return to the helm of Honduras, pending a decision by Congress. That is a plan that Zelaya had supported.

But Micheletti also says the Supreme Court must first weigh in. The court had ordered the original arrest warrant for Zelaya, for disobeying a court order to scrap a vote to consider a constituent assembly. And Congress voted to remove Zelaya from office. Even members of Zelaya's political party feared that he was ultimately seeking to modify presidential term limits for presidents. Zelaya denies that was his motive.

Zelaya's team has not commented on the deal, but the leader said on Radio Globo Thursday night that "tomorrow will be the day that the plan will be signed to restore democracy to the country."

American intervention in Honduras isn't as selfless as it seems

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:03:38 -0700

Trey Treviño | Oct 29 | smudailycampus.com

I was browsing through Google News when I came across an article about how the United States is sending three officials to Honduras to facilitate negotiations with the recently ousted president, Manuel Zelaya-who still has a significant portion of public support-and the new leader, Roberto Micheletti.

Apparently, tensions are reaching a fever pitch, and Honduras has been temporarily suspended from the Organization of American States until the crisis is under control.

The first thing that popped into my head when I read this story was: Why the hell are we wasting manpower on Honduras of all places?

Unlike the Middle East, Honduras has no oil, so why should our government actually care what's going on over there? A genuine desire to help impoverished nations, you say? To which I respond: There have been many impoverished nations and many countries which have suffered greater problems than Honduras (Rwanda, Uganda, Europe before Pearl Harbor). We didn't so much as lift a finger for them for the simple reason that they had absolutely nothing of value to offer us.

I'm not necessarily saying that we are an incredibly selfish and self-centered country. We are, however, certainly a pragmatic one. We, as a country, have established a long and cultured tradition of never rendering assistance unless it benefits us in some way.

There are countless dictators all over the world towards whom we turn a blind eye. Do we really care about making the world a better place? Well, what would the point of that be if there was no monetary gain? Perhaps we want other countries to like us? Nah; we have Israel on our side, so we're good.

So there I was, reading the news, wondering what the gain of intervention could possibly be, when I stumbled upon a little factoid: Honduras is the second largest producer of coffee in all of Central America.

Suddenly, it was clear: We did have something to gain, for until this "crisis" is resolved, we lose easy access to a ready supply of coffee, that special concoction that a majority of the population depends upon to function. And that's why we're sending help.

But coffee still isn't as important as oil, so we're only sending three officials, and not the entire god damn army.

Colombia's endangered species at the mercy of jungle drug cartels

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:44:24 -0700

Jamie Doward | Oct 25

The Observer -

A global campaign will make young people aware of the danger the illicit drug trade represents to hundreds of species in Colombia's rainforests

Until recently, the Gorgeted Puffleg was rather obscure – in fact, until four years ago it did not officially exist.

But although the tiny hummingbird was discovered only in 2005, in a small and remote region of rainforest in south-western Colombia, it is about to take centre stage in the war on drugs as governments around the globe alert the younger generation to the dangers of cocaine.

Experts fear the bird is one of several hundred species that will become extinct within decades if Colombia's rainforests continue to be razed for the purposes of coca cultivation. Other animals under threat – and that appear in information packs distributed to European schoolchildren – include the harpy eagle, titi monkey, golden poison frog, tapir, spectacled bear and gorgona blue lizard.

Colombia, one of the largest environmental hubs in the planet, with a territory of more than 1 million square kilometres, has been warning about the dangers of "ecocide" caused by the country's drug cartels for several years. As one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, it is home to 50,000 plant species and 18% of the world's bird species. But now it is attempting to make children aware that the threats facing its rainforests are a global issue that will have an impact on climatic stability.

Colombia's Medellin hit by new wave of drug violence

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:02:04 -0700

Hugh Bronstein | Medellin | Oct 20

Reuters - * Extradition of Medellin crime boss sparks turf battles
* City murder rate doubles, violence focused in poor areas
* Faults seen in government's popular security policies

After a sharp fall in crime that raised hopes of peace in a city once infamous as home to the world's biggest cocaine cartel, the poor neighborhoods of Medellin are once again at war.

The city's murder rate has more than doubled since the 2008 extradition of its main crime boss, known as Don Berna, which left a power vacuum in the local drug and extortion rackets.

"When the boss was here, we had support," a mid-level gangster told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "The difference now is there is no support, so we have to look for it ourselves, and every change (in alliances) causes deaths."

The fight to control the narrow, winding streets of the city's hilltop neighborhoods has descended into a free-for-all involving scores of new gangs run by former right-wing militia members who "demobilized" under a government peace plan.

Honduran Crisis Talks on Hold After Zelaya Rejects Proposal

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:19:29 -0700

Blake Schmidt | Oct 20

Bloomberg - Talks to end Honduras’s political stalemate are on hold again after ousted president Manuel Zelaya rejected the acting government’s latest proposal as “insulting,” negotiator Victor Meza said late yesterday.

“We won’t return to meet until we receive a proposal we consider serious and constructive,” Meza, a top aide to Zelaya, told reporters in Tegucigalpa.

Zelaya supporters plan to hold protests today at the National Autonomous University in the capital after the acting government eased restrictions on protests and media yesterday, protest organizer Eddy Castro said.

Meza called on the Organization of American States to step in after talks “stagnated” due to “delay tactics” by Roberto Micheletti, the acting president. Negotiations remain deadlocked over what government branch should decide whether to restore Zelaya to power.

Micheletti yesterday proposed giving negotiating teams the final say on Zelaya’s return. Zelaya had rejected a proposal on Oct. 16 by the acting government to give the Supreme Court ultimate jurisdiction over his return. The ousted leader demanded that legislators resolve the matter.

Under Micheletti’s proposal yesterday, the three-member negotiating teams would consider opinions of both the Supreme Court and Congress before ultimately deciding whether Zelaya can return to power, Micheletti representative Arturo Corrales said.

** Honduras De Facto Government Scolds Zelaya
** Rights curbs lifted as regime eyes Honduras polls
** Ousted Honduran president's supporters losing steam

Nicaraguan Supreme Court authorizes re-election bid for Ortega

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:12:48 -0700

Managua | Oct 20

DPA - Nicaragua's Supreme Court has authorized the re-election bid of President Daniel Ortega, ordering the election tribunal to register his candidacy for the 2011 election.

The surprising court verdict changes the 1987 constitution, which prohibited consecutive presidential terms. Ortega had tried without success to get the National Assembly to amend the charter.

The court decision also benefits 109 mayors and vice mayors of Ortega's ruling Sandinista Front, allowing them to run for re-election in 2012.

Three court judges, including former senior Sandinista official Rafael Solis, read the verdict at a press conference Monday night.

Attorney Eduardo Mejia brought the case on behalf of Ortega and the elected municipal officials. The court agreed that the claimants could stand for re-election, overturning the constitution, because they were 'citizens with political, constitutional and electoral rights.'