Los análisis que se reproducen son preparados por investigadores del Concilio en Asuntos Hemisféricos (Council on Hemispheric Affairs, o COHA, en inglés)

El Consejo de Asuntos Hemisféricos(COHA), fundado en 1975, es una organización independiente, sin fines de lucro, no partidaria y exenta de impuestos, dedicada a la investigación e información. Ha sido descripta en el Senado como ”uno de los cuerpos de académicos y especialistas en políticas públicas más respetados en la nación”

The Rise and Fall of Shining Path

In the Beginning:

The Shining Path (Sendero Luminosos) Maoist guerrillas were formed by university professor Abimael Guzman in the late 1960s and were based upon Marxist ideology. At the time, Guzman was teaching philosophy at San Cristbal of Huamanga University, while engaging in left-wing politics. He attracted many like-minded young academics to his cause of staging a radical revolution in Peru. He visited the Peoples Republic of China in the mid-1960s and his collection of inchoate ideas was profoundly influenced by a mumble-tumble of Maoist theories, which became the basis of the ideological foundations of the Shining Path. In 1980, he launched his campaign to overthrow the Peruvian government.

The Shining Paths main goal was to destroy existing Peruvian political institutions and replace them with a communist peasant revolutionary regime, while resisting any influence coming from other Latin American guerrilla groups like the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), as well as from foreign ideologies. According to researchers, Shining Paths basic strategy was to use violence to bring down the countrys imperfect democratic institutions, prevent citizens from participating in local government, destroy Perus economy, and to thwart government-sponsored programs to provide aid and services to the population. As a result of a series of clandestine meetings, Shining Path officials established a military school to teach young recruits military tactics and weaponry use. At first, Shining Path was successful in many of its endeavors because the Lima authorities were beset by organizational instability, corruption, and were ill-prepared to fight the internal war that wo uld foreshadow the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent villagers caught in the middle of the struggle.

Alternative Strategies: South Africas Water Policies

Coming Next From COHA

Kozloff: Taking Another Look at the Chvez Revolution

Cuba: Making a Decisive Turn, but Is Washington Watching?

Bush Administration Deals with Its Failed Latin American Policy, by Exhuming the Fourth Fleet, as It Militarizes Its Regional Strategy
While many in this hemisphere will think of Cochabamba, Bolivia when the subject of the commercialization of water and its struggle with Bechtel, the water scenario is being played out in a variety of venues around the world. For example, the water issue is in the crosshairs of South African policy-makers. South African water policy has made enormous strides since the establishment of the new African National Congress (ANC) government in 1994. After taking office, it set forth new policies that made sustainable access to clean and healthy water a human rights issue imbedded within the Constitution. Nevertheless,
there is a distinct gap between household water policy and the countrys water service provisions in three major areas: access, sanitation and waste management, and sustainability. First, access to water remains one of South Africas primary problems with its household water policy.

While the number of households with access to clean water has increased significantly from 77% in 1993 to 88% in 2003 (Lecture, 3/3/08), the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) data for 2007 shows there exists a backlog of .65 million households without basic water services, in which there no access to any form of formal water infrastructure. Second, although the governments focus on sanitation and waste management has been increasing, DWAF continues to report a backlog of 3.5 million households with access to sanitation below the levels established in the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP). Finally, South African water policy has been inadequate to confronting the task of sustainability. Sustainability refers to the obligation of the state to perform 2 functions: first, to protect the natural environment from pollutants and other wastes that would damage the water supply and second, to assure development to communities in order to meet the needs of pr esent and future consumers.
Although the 1997 Water Services Act emphasizes the protection of South Africas scarce water resources from harmful substances and pollution, the implementation of this policy is lacking in terms of a strict enforcement mechanism to uphold pollution standards, as well as the ratification of the structure of charges for waste discharge and water pollution. In considering these three major problems with water services, the problems of access, sanitation, and sustainability will be broached in greater depth in comparison with South Africas existing water policy, including the 1997 Water Services Act and the National Water Resource Strategy (NWRS). The purpose here is to further explore the causes for the gap between policy and implementation. After that, a course of action to improve South Africas water policy will be entertained, which favors greater efficiency in implementing the existing framework of water service policies set out in the National Water Resource Strategy of 2004, a redefined and more limite d approach to the concept of Free Basic Water, and finally the creation of an overarching framework for sanitation based on a strategic model for water delivery.

Key Issues in Household Water Policy

Household access to water has shown dramatic improvements since the new ANC government came to power in 1994, with statistical research in 1994 showing 12 million people without household access to water; current DWAF updates for the 2007 report indicates that there are now less than 3 million people without access to water. This in turn suggests that there has been a significant increase in the ability of South Africans to gain access to household water. Two important pieces of legislation contributed to this increase, namely the 1994 White Paper on a National Water Policy and the 1998 National Water Act. The 1994 White Paper stressed the importance of implementing a policy that ensured equitable access to water. It not only abolished the riparian system of water allocation, but also established the reserve, a protected percentage of South Africas water that would be used to guarantee meeting basic human needs and maintain environmental sustainability for future generations . Yet, where the White Paper estab lished broad guidelines for future policy, the 1998 National Water Act focused exclusively on the question of equity of access to water. This Act mandated the creation of the National Water Resource Strategy (NWRS) to set out a national framework for managing water resources. Additionally, the 1997 National Water Policy contributed to this by classifying water as a national resource for which the government was a public trustee. In 2000, the government committed itself to further addressing access issues by establishing a system of Free Basic Water to benefit low-income households, as well as allocating responsibility for household access to municipalities and local governments to better monitor the needs of consumers.

One of Historys Great Atrocities: The Corporate Theft of the Publics Natural Right to Water

Alternative Strategies: South Africa’s Water Policy

Andrea Arango’s article, entitled Alternative Strategies: South Africa’s Water Policy, will be issued on Thursday, May 1st. This COHA publication is another in the organization’s contribution to the debate over who will control the world’s water supply.
The Growing Debate on who will Control the Worlds Water Supply

The current 1.1 billion people worldwide without access to potable water only opens one of the smaller windows on the injustices and the multiple casualties being wrought by private water-related industries. In fact, many are clueless to the magnitude of the victims present and projected of the growing water crisis as well as to the inhumane implications of the role of the private sector in regards to treating water as a commodity that can be owned and sold for profit. As of now, 2.6 billion people are at high risk for not having access to potable and an additional 1.8 million children die each year from water-related diseases.


In the mix of chaos, despair, and confusion, which most affects the poorer elements of society, it is important to note the private corporations role, which some critics have identified as being among the major culprits in causing the crisis. Within recent decades, water privatization firms such as Suez, Vivendi, and RWE have bought control of a number of communities municipal water services, and then drastically increased the price of water; with some of them failing to effectively purify the water resources they had come to monopolize.

An Innate Right

The heightened trend towards water privatization has gone almost undetected by the general public for well over a decade, despite the huge ramifications it is having on many lives. Public water advocates argue that it is a necessity of life and no individual or corporation has the right to seize ownership and place a value on the resource. Water is for life, not for profit. Author Vadana Shiva resolutely states that water is a commons because it is the basis of all life. Water rights are natural rights and thus usufructuary rights, meaning that water can be used, but not owned. Water privatization has caused considerable strife around the world, specifically in less industrialized nations. Major water companies, with the help of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), continue to divest communities of their natural right to water, thus undermining the essence of democracy as well as contributing to an insidious form of global deprivation.

The Secret Aspects of NAFTA

Colombia deserves a cold handshake rather than a warm abrazo from the Bush Administration

President Bush has set the proposed, FTA to Congress for legislative action. He stressed the fact that Colombia is a good friend and that on economic and security grounds it deserves to be rewarded by the Democratic-controlled congress with an affirmative vote.

In order to justify a free trade pact with Bogot, President Bush repeatedly presents Colombia as a thriving democracy and President Uribe as a committed constitutionalist. In fact, Uribe for years has had a sinister history of sanctioning human rights violations, compromising the work of human rights agencies and jeopardizing their personal security by publicly accusing them as scarcely being distinguishable from leftist guerillas. At the present moment, Colombias Attorney General is investigating corruption charges which he had lodged against a large number of legislators coming from Uribes own party, that involve claims that these political allies of Uribe were directly linked to the extreme rightwing death squads known as the AUC, of which Uribe was said to be part of this relationship. Uribe also undermined the core of Washingtons anti-drug strategy in Colombia by allowing AUC members to plead guilty and thus obtain immunity against being extradited to the U.S. to sta nd trial for their drug-traffickin g activities. This initiative in effect torpedoes the heart of Washingtons anti-drug strategy in Colombia.

The Bush administration is grateful that Uribe has been a strong backer of a distorted U.S. policy in the region. But what may be good for the White House and the Nario Palace is not necessarily good for America or Latin America. The fact that Colombia is one of the few friendly faces that Washington can count on in the hemisphere is an indication of how isolated this administration is in the region, and which probably has done irreversible damage to any prospects for a relationship of constructive engagement with the rest of the hemisphere.

Today, Colombia is probably the worse human rights violation in Latin America and is a nation where labor leaders and democratic political activists are murdered with impunity to the indifference of the Colombian authority. Colombia is without any bona fide claims to be granted a free trade relationship with the U.S. and Congress would be wise to reject any further trade concessions to Bogot at a time that U.S. workers are suffering from Bushs neglect, if not indifference.

Larry Birns
Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

NAFTA
This is another in a series of essays on the problems and prospects of NAFTA.

Specifically related to NAFTA and such associated issues as free trade, immigration, drug trafficking and economic security, are the security concerns of the trade pacts members. Also important to note in an increasingly globalized world, security threats are not just posed by military personnel and weapons, but include economic security issues as well. To uncover the relationship between NAFTA and security, it is important to know how the trade pact was first intended to deal with such matters. NAFTA was heralded by politicians, economists and, to the American public, as a grand equalizer. It was the first area agreement between developed and developing nations designed to provide economic growth opportunities for both.
There have existed many expectations concerning NAFTAs ability to meet its lofty objectives. It is important to note the economic expectations surrounding NAFTA, and the arguments currently being used to discuss the trade pact, as it centers on its actual performance. First, due to its trade liberalization trend, NAFTA was intended to enhance the export markets of both the United States and Mexico. Prior to its implementation in 1994, centrist economists Hufbauer and Schott, based at the Institute for International Economics, wrote, over time, the NAFTA should impel industrial reorganization along regional lines, with firms taking best advantage of each countrys ability to produce components and assembled products and thus enhancing competitiveness in the global marketplace (Hufbauer and Schott 4). Greater market efficiency would occur, allowing for a more prudent allocation of resources.

Anniversary of a Political Murder in Colombia

Pan-Macedonian Association USA responds to Zlatko Kovachs Allegations on Macedonia: Reaching Out To Win L. American Hearts

Zlatko Kovach, in his Macedonia: Reaching Out To Win L. American Hearts, proves one more time that he is the product of the continuous brainwashing condition and lies, provided by an education system which emerged from a Balkan nation, under Titos and Stalins tutelage.

Mr. Kovach begins his elaborations, stating: Macedonia historically and culturally did transcend the country’s current borders. In 1912-13, through two brutal regional wars, Macedonia was forcefully partitioned among Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. The Macedonians were subject to qualified genocide and many were driven from their land. It is this reality that Greece tirelessly tries to cover up. Mr. Kovach fails to bring up that during the Ottoman era which lasted for five hundred years and ended in 1912 in that area, there was no use of the term Macedonia (meaning the boundaries of the geographic or ancient Macedonia). Ancient Macedonia was divided in two vilaets, the vilaet of Thessaloniki and the vilaet of Monastiri (Bitola). Skopje was the capital of the Kosovo vilaet and was never included in the so-called geographic Macedonia.

To read more on this CLICK HERE

COLOMBIA
Gaitn and the 9 de abril movement
Colombian democracy sputters rather than soars
The one thing that those living outside of Latin America are likely to know about Colombia, besides its association with the illegal drug trade, is its unremitting violence. The country evokes images of ruthless drug lords, merciless paramilitary killers, and militant guerrilla armies, piles of bloody corpses and despairing kidnapped hostages.
The Colombia of today is directly linked to these antecedents. Colombia is a managed democracy,free, but not necessarily fairwith the far right government of lvaro Uribe largely trusting its political future to the aid and goodwill of the Bush Administration, as well as acting as a bulwark against the Latin American left-leaning movement led by Venezuelas Hugo Chvez.
Historians, however, can point out that this Andean template did not always exist. In the 1930s and early 1940s, during the so-called Liberal Republic, Colombia stood out as a relatively stable and democratic nationone of the most respectable in the hemisphere. In fact, Colombias political culture spawned a massive populist movement led by prominent labor lawyer and politician on the Liberal left, Jorge Elicer Gaitn.

Calderón, NAFTA, and Mexicos Campesinos in 2008

Recent COHA print citations

• The Miami Herald - Will U.S. economic woes expose Latin America to new turmoil?
• The Washington Times - Espionage to proceed under Raul Castro, sources say
• Bloomberg.com - Chavez Roils Latin America as Friend of Cocaine-Peddling FARC

See more citations
This is the second in a series of analyses of NAFTA and the U.S. Presidential Primaries.

U.S. Preisdnetial Primary and Republican Debate over NAFTA

On January 1 2008, the final provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was implemented, abolishing all agricultural tariffs that were in effect. The free trade agreement, which was signed by U.S., Mexico, and Canada, took effect at the beginning of 1994. In spite of the driven proselytizing of Mexican President Carlos Salinas Gotari, NAFTA was not beloved by all. In that country, the biggest opposition to NAFTA has come from the peasant farmers, who most recently expressed their indignation in Mexico City, when over 100,000 campesinos, condemned the trade pact at El Zocalo (the citys central square), on January 31, 2008.

Subsidized U.S. Agro-Industry Poses Mortal Threat to Mexicos Poor Farmers
Throughout NAFTAs brief history, Mexicos peasant farmers have arguably suffered the most adverse consequences from the free trade agreement. Despite the massive protests, current Mexican President Felipe Caldern has made it clear that he will not even consider re-negotiating NAFTA. However, he may soon have to face the question as a result of pressure from either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, if either one of them wins the presidency.

Regardless, Caldern insists that he can begin to address the campesino cause in his country by implementing policies aimed at alleviating the negative economic impact of having to compete with below-market priced agricultural imports from the U.S. He also plans to eradicate tariffs that apparently will seem to mainly hurt the already struggling subsidence farmers throughout the country, mainly in the south.

Democratic Primaries: The Resurrection of NAFTA as a Cause Clbre

In spite of the at times deceptive salesmanship, NAFTA has never been a win-win situation.

Bill Clintons legacy as the prime NAFTA pusher comes back to haunt Hillary.

The contention that NAFTA will be heavily modified, if not dropped, is more pie in the sky, with the more likely political template, being that once victorious, either one of the Democratic primary contestants will be disinclined to roil the waters with a fight over the pact.

Some comments on Cuban trade

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton repeatedly tells the nation that she always has been wary of NAFTA, and would be prepared to suspend compliance with the trade agreement, if need be, should Canada and Mexico oppose reopening the pact to a new round of negotiations. Candidate Obama, while speaking in the same vein, has been less specific, if anything, than even Clinton in calling for the revision of NAFTA. If Obama is occasionally muddled on the free trade issue, he at least is not revising history when it comes to NAFTA, as has been the case with candidate Clinton regarding her own as well as her husbands record on the subject. On a number of occasions in recent weeks, she has been insisting that she always has been against NAFTA, in spite of the record contradicting such claims. The embarrassing fact is that, over the years, on a number of occasions, she has spoken in support of the trade pact, stressing its importance to the American economy.

Regarding Cuba, Hillary Clinton has insisted that she would not be prepared to enter into discussions with Havana unless a number of pre-conditions were met, including Cubas adoption of an open market system. Her critics will attack her on this point, on the grounds that no nation has the right to mandate what economic system or trade policies another nation should embrace unless it has freely affiliated with such a proposal and is not violating its previously established pledges. Cuba has made no such commitment to U.S.-style free trade. In fact, throughout Latin America, there is a distinct counter-trend in the direction back to the regions traditional economic model, which features a mixed economy composed of strong public and private sectors.

Haiti: President Prval Seeks and Electoral Amendment

Prval strives to strengthen countrys democratic institutions, but Aristide Factor still unresolved

Another Presidential Term for Aristide?

One can understand why Haitis President Ren Prval is so tirelessly pressing for a constitutional amendment whereby an incumbent president could immediately run for reelection, rather than having to wait at least one term. But the new arrangement could be fraught with danger. Not all Latin American democratic institutions are sufficiently durable to withstand the buffeting emanating from strongmen with authoritarian aspirations.

A long presidency tends to provide such a strongman with the time and space to evolve a personalistic system in the spirit of 19th century continuismo that incorporates political powerhouse tactics, as well as pushing for vested interests. Democratic societies of uncertain virtue may be best served by a process that relies upon rotation in office and other buffering processes which discourage the sprouting of permanent roots and the special arrangements that guard against venality, which can be improved over time. Single-term presidency provides less time for self-serving accommodations to be made, thus discouraging graft and opportunities for other forms of corruption.

A year into his second term as Haitis president, Ren Prval, like so many of his regional counterparts, raised the issue of amending his countrys constitution in order to reinvent the traditional term limits concerning the chief executive. The issue arises against a background of human rights violations, continuing gang violence in Haitis urban areas, a poorly trained and equipped national police force, and concerns about the effectiveness of foreign troops supposedly bringing order to the country.

Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela: A Close Call

Santander and Bolivar Called to the Colors to Butress Uribe and Chvez Uribe tries out for The Dick Cheney Role A Narrow Escape from Brinkmanship No victors, but Uribe clearly is a loser

As last weeks diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Colombia demonstrates, Chvez has once again sought to appropriate historical symbols in an effort to score political points. Employing explosive language, Chvez remarked Some day Colombia will be freed from the hand of the (U.S.) empire. We have to liberate Colombia.

At its peak, the political battle lines of the triangular confrontation embracing Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador had been drawn. On the one side was Colombia, a key U.S. ally headed by rightist lvaro Uribe. On the other side was Chvez, who seeks to turn Venezuela into a powerful regional player that may serve as a counterweight to Washingtons desire to project its authority. Ultimately, Chvez seeks to plant his socialist economic agenda fused with a parliamentary democratic political system throughout the region and to this end he has been able to recruit key allies such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and, or course, Cuba.

Full article...
This analysis was prepared by Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff

Obama on Latin American Trade: Muddled and Confused

UribeLatin Americas Most Disgraced President

Legacy of Colombias violation of Ecuadors sovereignty will be a heavy cross for Uribe to bear.

Honored in Washington, Uribe is scorned throughout Latin America for being Bushs favored hemispheric figure.

However muffled the language may be, President Uribe is destined to be Latin Americas most scorned president in modern times. Condemned by voice and written denunciations throughout the hemisphere, Uribe did manage to solely win enthusiastic, if almost meaningless praise, from lame-duck President George Bush, who saw nothing wrong with Colombia applying Iraqi-style tactics on Ecuadorian territory. Even the most accommodating analyst would have to inform Uribe that he has just finished the most catastrophic week of an already catastrophic presidency and effectively the demise of his presidency and influenced on the hemisphere. There is no question that, ironically enough, Farcista Ral Reyes has posthumously inflicted the most devastating and lasting defeat on Uribe. Metaphorically speaking, Reyes has scalped Uribe and then hung the Colombian leaders tattered presidential sash upon a pike and walked the macabre sight through the streets of Latin America.

A Heavy Burden to Bear

At the end of the day, the price of gunning down Reyes will prove to be excessively high for Uribe. On going negotiations for the release of scores of FARC-held hostages, which has eagerly sought after by Uribe, have been unquestionably terminated, at least for the foreseeable future. Reyes was the FARC figure most identified with the hostage-release dialogue with Colombia and European intermediates. In the past, Reyes was the FARC official most engaged in talks that had taken place with high level figures abroad, working for the release of a number of FARC detainees, particularly Ingrid Betancourt, whose freedom was especially sought after by the French, due to her holding both Colombian and French citizenship. Additionally, Reyes was said to have maintained liaison with Venezuelas efforts, which had been abruptly guillotined last November, when Hugo Chvez was sacked by Uribe as Colombias unofficial negotiator. By ordering the killing of Reyes, Uribe guaranteed that fo rmer Colombian presidential candid ate Ingrid Betancourt will remain in guerrilla custody indefinitely.

A Man for Few Seasons
Uribe cultivates a hard-line image that brooks no flexibility when it comes to visiting affliction upon the Farcistas, which has won him considerable popularity within Colombia. But it is a popularity that is more broad than deep. As for FARC, it is not a soft and fuzzy organization at all, but it must be understood that all of their actions have an end in mind. Behind the drug trafficking and kidnappings lies a resolve to obtain the freedom of their imprisoned comrades and to guarantee their own securities. Yet here again, Uribes instincts were antipathetic to a rational assessment of how to peacefully resolve on internecine strife that had been going on for decades, with honor and with homage to the Colombian nations.

Now prepared to retire from office, the Bush administration already has reached the nadir of its popularity on the Hill and when it comes to its Latin American policy, no one can suggest that it was even faintly credible.
In fact, Bushs policy was a parody of a policy; in effect, with no exaggeration, it could be called an anti-policy. Uribe is unlikely to witness the U.S. Congress passing a beneficial trade measure on his behalf.
In terms of the high price that Uribe is being forced to pay, the toll is there to clearly be seen.

The Colombian president does not have a compelling reputation which can make him proud. Uribe is anything but an apostle of democracy. He is armed with a grim personality that is more Dick Cheneyesque in impact than Helen Keller, he had no problem with packing the countrys Supreme Court when he was encountering problems in convincing it to make a decision that the Constitution would allow him to be re-elected.

Nor did the U.S. make much of a fuss when, for a token guilty plea and a minimum prison sentence, AUC vigilantes are guaranteed against being extradited to the U.S., even though the extradition policy had been at the heart of Washingtons anti-drug strategy. Another sore point is Uribes reputation for playing fast and loose when it comes to personal matters of corruption, and his years of very murky connections to some of the countrys worst rightist extremists. He has worked tirelessly to provide these AUC extremist vigilantes (classified as terrorists even by the State Department) to see to it that their future isnt bleak even now, many of the people who Uribe protected from doing jail time have gone back to a life of major drug trafficking. In a recurring scandal involving Uribe, some 35% of the legislative representatives of his conservative party have direct ideological and/or financial arrangements with these death-squads. Nor should it be forgotten that even the St ate Department acknowledges that t he AUC was tolerated and afforded sweetheart deals by Uribe while it still was carrying out massacres of trade union leaders and hundreds of other civilians.

Larry Birns
Director of COHA

Obama on Latin American Trade: Muddled and Confused

As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Barack Obama, a contender for the Democratic Party nomination, has been reluctant to discuss U.S. policy towards Latin America. In recent years, the region has undergone a major tectonic shift towards the left, prompting many to wonder how the young Illinois Senator might deal with progressive economic change if elected President.

In South America, there has been considerable resistance to the Bush Administrations free trade initiatives. Hugo Chvez of Venezuela has even set up his own trade and barter scheme, the Bolivarian Alternative to The Americas (or ALBA), as a foil to Washingtons private sector model. Realizing that it cannot push through a hemispheric-wide free trade initiative, the Bush administration has sought individual free trade agreements on a country-by-country basis. However, recent deals have been questioned by many due to their lack of regard for adequate labor and environmental mandates.

Full article...
This analysis was prepared by COHA Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff

U.S. Presidential Candidates' Rhetoric on Latin America

Colombias President Uribe Goes Dangerously Ballistic

Colombian President in effect has terminated the hostage release program by resorting to bombs not diplomacy in resolving his dispute with FARC guerillas.
Speculation over the possible U.S. role in the affair and whether U.S.
trainers, helicopters, satellite imaging, intelligence and smart bombs were supplied.

On Saturday, the Colombian air force attacked a FARC camp site in Ecuador, a mile from the Colombian border resulting in the death of Raul Reyes (Luis Edgar Devia Silva), the second in command of the FARC, and seventeen other members of his unit. Both Ecuador and Venezuela reacted with outrage, with Ecuador immediately recalling its ambassador (Venezuela previously had done
so) and ordering their troops to their respective borders with Colombia in response to the air strike and subsequent incursion by Colombian helicopters ordered by President Alvaro Uribe into Ecuador.

What is particularly worrisome about this entire scenario is the strong possibility of U.S. involvement in the incident and what role, if any, Southcom had in planning, supplying and carrying out the operation. There are good grounds to speculate that the entire game plan seems to have been carried out at too sophisticated a level by a Colombian military which normally is dismissed as incompetent, corrupt, drug sodden and ill-deposed to risk dangers.

While there is no evidence to buttress such surmises, the U.S. role could have involved the supply of intelligence based on satellites and heat sensors, a supply of smart bombs and the seconding of some of the scores of U.S. trainers in the country to cooperate in carrying out the initiative. In addition, there could have been possible authorization of the use of Black Hawk helicopters provided under the auspices of Plan Colombia, the multi billion dollar U.S. military aid program which transformed Colombia into being the third largest recipient of such U.S. assistance in the world.

Caracas and Quito have called the attack cowardly and cold and have argued that Ecuadorian air and ground space were clearly violated and there was no justification for such foreign military action on Ecuadorian soil. Chvez also said that if such an attack had been duplicated on Venezuelan soil, Caracas would consider declaring war on Colombia.

Ecuador has withdrawn its ambassador to Colombia, expelled the Colombian ambassador in Quito, while Venezuela has ordered 10 battalions to the border for possible military action.

There is no question that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has dangerously escalated the tension now mounting in the northern arc of South America.
Uribes decision to take such violent action just at the time that the tempo of FARCs release of some of the estimated 750 hostages it was holding was being stepped up, has to be seen as a very strange development when one considers that the Colombian President had previously sacked Chvez last November for his successful record in arranging the release of several hostages thus, there may be other matters on Uribes agenda rather than just hostage release. Uribe is also risking the $6 billion a year in bilateral trade between Venezuela and Colombia and he may be hoping that Chvezs decision to send 10 battalions of troops to the Colombia-Venezuela border may be put to good use in convincing Congressional Democrats to give up their opposition to approving the bilateral free trade agreement that the Bush administration has signed with Bogota, due to Colombias sta lwart fight against terrorism. The Democrats now oppose such passage because the Colombian security forces have a repellant reputation for gunning down the countrys labor leaders.

The question is how prudent was Uribes dangerously precipitous action.
Without question, Colombias Darth Vader has ordered operations before that have violated the territorial boundaries of his neighbors, such as using Colombian intelligence forces to collaborate with Venezuelan mercenaries to penetrate that countrys territory to abduct the FARC`s Rodrigo Granda, who later was released after Frances Nicolas Sarkozy persuaded Uribe to let him go after Colombias tensions with Caracas continued to escalate.

The Audacity of Vagueness: Barack Obama and Latin America by COHA Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff

As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, has not been very eager to comprehensively address Latin America as an issue. In recent years, the region has undergone a major tectonic shift towards the left, surely prompting many to wonder how the young Illinois Senator might deal with progressive change throughout the hemisphere were he elected to the White House.

Full article...
This analysis was prepared by COHA Staff

Latin America and the U.S. Presidential Campaign: Nikolas Kosloff on John McCain

In the event that John McCain is elected president, the stage soon could be set for a confrontation with the present Dominica leadership if it continues to follow an independent road regarding its relation with Hugo Chvez Venezuela, the vehicle for this could be his ties to a relatively obscure body based in Washington. The Arizona Senator has chaired the International Republican Institute (IRI) since 1993. Ostensibly a non-partisan, democracy-building outfit, in reality the IRI serves as an instrument to advance and promote a far right Republican foreign policy agenda. More a cloak-and-dagger operation than a conventional research group, IRI has aligned itself with some of the most antidemocratic movements in the Third World.

In Haiti, IRI aggressively funded anti-Aristide groups and in Venezuela, IRI generously financed anti-Chvez civil society operations. When Venezuelan opposition politicians, union and community leaders went to Washington on a private mission to meet with U.S. officials just a month before the April 2002 coup, IRI picked up the bill. The IRI also helped to fund the countrys notoriously corrupt Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (which played a major role in the anti-Chvez destabilization campaign leading up to the coup). IRI also arranged for Smate, whose director just happened to be at the presidential palace in Caracas with the other backers of the coup, where she decided to sign her name to a document identifying her presence with the other golpistas.

Full article...
This analysis was prepared by Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff

Paradise at Risk: Environmental and Nuclear Issues Bedevil the Caribbean

Latin American and the U.S. Nation Presidential Campaign: Nikolas Kosloff on John McCain

Back To the Terror Island?

In the event that John McCain is elected president, the stage could be set for confrontation with the Dominica leadership. The Arizona Senator has chaired the International Republican Institute (IRI) since 1993. Ostensibly a non-partisan, democracy-building outfit, in reality the IRI serves as an instrument to advance and promote a far right Republican foreign policy agenda. More a cloak-and-dagger operation than a conventional democratic-promoting research group, IRI has aligned itself with some of the most antidemocratic movements in the Third World.

In Haiti, IRI aggressively funded anti-Aristide groups and in Venezuela, IRI generously financed anti-Chvez civil society operations. When Venezuelan opposition politicians, union and community leaders went to Washington on a private mission to meet with U.S. officials just a month before the April 2002 coup, IRI picked up the bill. The IRI also helped to fund the corrupt Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (which played a major role in the anti-Chvez destabilization campaign leading up to the coup) and Smate, whose director was at the Presidential palace with the other supporters of the coup, which later failed.

McCain at the Helm

For more than a decade, IRI chairman McCain has taken a personal interest in IRI's Cuba work and vigorously praised the IRI-funded anti-Castro opposition. The Arizona Senator has called Cuba a national security threat, adding that as president, I will not passively await the long overdue demise of the Castro dictatorship . . . The Cuban people have waited long enough. Meanwhile, McCain's most influential advisers on Latin American affairs are Cuban Americans from Florida, including far right Congressional figures such as House legislators Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros Lehtinen.

McCain seeks to confront countries such as Venezuela and Cuba by encouraging U.S. partnership with rightist regimes that support American-style free trade and despise Havana, such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. Concerned about growing ties between Cuba and Venezuela, McCain said He [Chvez] aspires to be this generation's [Fidel] Castro. I think the people of Venezuela ought to look at the standard of living in Cuba before they would embrace such a thing.

To make matters worse, the Chair of IRI has sought to promote neo-conservative figures from the Bush regime such as John Bolton, who has staked out an exceedingly hard line position on U.S.-Latin America relations. During the latter's confirmation hearings in the Senate, McCain urged his Democratic colleagues to approve the diplomat's nomination as UN ambassador quickly. Bolton has been a super hawk not only on Iran but also Venezuela. At the time, McCain, who has referred to Chvez as a wacko, said it was important to confirm Bolton, and with him there, the U.S. would be able to talk back to two-bit dictators like the Venezuelan leader.
With his long history of taking a combative stance against the Latin American left, McCain might seek to isolate or put pressure on the Skerrit government to sever its ties to Venezuela. Just as Reagan sought to make an example of Grenada, demonstrating that the U.S. would not brook an independent foreign and economic policy operating so close to its shores, McCain might seek to take the offensive against such Chvez initiatives as ALBA and PetroCaribe. The prospect of a tough operator like McCain taking command in Washington must genuinely worry those committed to a new emphasis on regional self-determination. With the grim fate of Grenada and Chile under Salvador Allende in mind, tiny Dominica has good reason to be apprehensive over its approaching destiny, whatever that might prove to be.

The Caribbean Coral Reef is slowly disappearing, a sign that nature is losing its war against development

A nuclear powered smelter is being planned in Suriname, as vessels carrying nuclear waste ply the Caribbean

A minor spill in December 2007 in a Jamaican resortdid the guests notice the black gunk in the water?

The Hemisphere reaffirms its intention to remain a nuclear weapons free-zone, but what about civilian nuclear power?

What does the OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin, who hails from Suriname, think of his countrys proposed nuclear energy source?

Tourists from across the globe seek out the Caribbean islands, attracted by sunlit beaches and deluxe hotels. At the same time, recent developments brought about by civilian nuclear use has put the Caribbeans fragile natural environment at significant risk. Surinames decision to build a nuclear powered bauxite refining plant is just the latest in a string of possible environmental threats now in the making in the region. In addition, proposals to widen the Panama Canal will have no small impact on the size and type of the next generation of vessels which will be transiting the Caribbean en route to the Central American isthmus, along with ships carrying nuclear waste and other hazardous materials. If allowed to occur, at some point, one-in-a-million nuclear episodes could bring about an environmental catastrophe. The ongoing loss of Caribbean coral reefs serves as example that, in spite of a few isolated initiatives and the odd alarm, safeguarding the environment is fa r from being a high-priority matte r for major Caribbean area decision makers.

Full article...
This analysis was prepared by Research Fellow: Alex Sánchez

Dominica: The Caribbeans Next Terror Island?

In 1983, while aboard a New York subway, I noticed someone reading that days issue of the New York Post. The front page headline screamed, YANKS INVADE TERROR ISLAND. It was early on in the Reagan administration and the U.S. had just militarily intervened in the Caribbean nation of Grenada, ending the islands short-lived socialist experiment. The landing was based on the pretext that the Reagan administration had suspected that the new commercial airportwhich Cuban laborers were aiding Grenada to construct on the islandactually would be used to transport Cuban troops to fight alongside African revolutionaries. Today, another Caribbean nation, Dominica, has been forging links with leftist Cuba and Venezuela. Authorities on that small Caribbean island had better watch out, or they may be presiding over this generations Terror Island, but this time the name of the island is Dominica.

A tiny nation of 133 square miles whose population could barely fill the Rose Bowl, Grenada had posed no strategic threat to the U.S. But Maurice Bishop of the leftist New Jewel Movement, which had ruled Grenada since 1979, had become positively irksome to Washington. Inspired at least as much by Bob Marley as by Karl Marx, Bishop, a young LSE graduate and an island intellectual and visionary, had embarked on an ambitious social and economic program aimed at diversifying agriculture, developing cooperatives, and creating an agro-industrial base that was leading to a reduction in food imports. Bishop also established a free health service and secondary education system, resulting in a markedly higher literacy rate on the island.

The Reagan administration sought to halt the New Jewel Movement in its tracks: economic assistance through the World Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank was mysteriously blocked, aid from the International Monetary Fund was restricted, and any participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative was dismissed out of hand. Reagan even refused to meet with Bishop when the Grenadian Prime Minister visited Washington in June, 1983. According to the Washington Post, the CIA had been engaged all along in a campaign to destabilize Grenada both politically and economically.

Full article...
This analysis was prepared by Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff

Macedonia: Reaching Out to Win Latin American Hearts and Minds

Recent COHA print citations

• Recent Media Cites of COHA
• MWC News - Raul Castro named Cuban president
• See more citations

On the eve of the explosive consequences of Kosovos independence, an artificial dispute, created by Greece seventeen years ago over the name and identity of the Republic of Macedonia, threatens to further destabilize the Balkans, with possibly uncontrolled consequences for regional peace. Incredibly, far off Latin America may help diffuse this situation and offer a solution.

Greece falsely accuses Macedonia that the latter is engaged in irredentism and hostile propaganda not to mention Greeces preposterous claim that Macedonia does not have the right to its own name and to its historical, ethnic, and religious identity. Demonstrably, Greeces moves are suspect: Macedonia historically and culturally did transcend the countrys current borders. In 1912-13, through two brutal regional wars, Macedonia was forcefully partitioned among Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. The Macedonians were subject to qualified genocide and many were driven from their land.

It is this reality that Greece tirelessly tries to cover up. Human Rights Watch, among other credible organizations, has documented the existence of on-going discrimination against the remaining Macedonians in Greece. In fact, until recently, Greece had legal provisions preventing exiled Macedonians from entering Greece in order to claim title of their family property. This context should help explain the name dispute, the endless Greek misinformation campaigns, the hostile posturing, and attempts to censor and trivialize Macedonian claims, but now via more refined methods involving international mechanisms, in the hope of gaining legitimacy via international sanctions of Macedonia.

Full article...
This analysis was prepared by Senior Research Fellow Zlatko Kovach, edited by Research Associates Bettina Huntenburg and Christina Padilla