desde nicaragua

Diplomatic Crisis in South America

As Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa seeks the backing of other Latin American leaders, (he plans to stop in Managua Thursday), the Organization of American States reaffirms today that Colombia violated its neighbor country's sovereignty by killing a FARC leader there this weekend.

The conflict has been called the region's "worst diplomatic crisis in years," as Venezuela mobilizes military forces to its Colombian border in support of Ecuador. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe claims his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez is sponsoring genocide by allegedly harboring FARC terrorists; Chávez calls Colombia the "Israel of South America" at Washington's command. (If that's the case, Guardian blogger Matthew Weaver asks, does that make Venezuela the region's Iran?)

While plenty of Western media tend to portray Chávez as a threat to the region, a story from the folks at Venezuelanalysis.com is refreshing. They call Colombia a destabalizing force in South America, saying the attack was planned to deter Colombians from participating in an international protest planned for tomorrow against those tortured, murdered or disappeared by the government and paramilitary forces there.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs speculates on U.S. involvement in the affair, as Saturday's incident seemed to be "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." The COHA article also discusses the U.S. presidential candidates' rhetoric on Latin America.

Meanwhile, the Washington Office on Latin America recently reported that the U.S.-sponsored intensive aerial herbicide spraying on coca crops in Colombia has "backfired badly" and contributes to the spread of its cultivation to new areas of the country:

"Fumigation is part of the problem," the report says. "The aerial spray operations tend to reinforce rather than weaken Colombian farmers' reliance on coca growing, prompting more rather than less replanting, thereby contributing to coca's spread into new areas of the country."

U.S. aid to Colombia has totaled more than $5 billion since 2000.  As fumigation intensified with an infusion of U.S. funds, officials portrayed the spraying as not merely innocuous to human health and the environment, but as environmentally beneficial because it would inhibit the loss of forests to coca crops. 

In Nicaragua, friends tell me they're placing bets on when Nicaragua will deploy troops in solidarity with its brother countries, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Chávez: Uribe's government is a tool for U.S. imperialism

"Chávez is supposed to be an incredible speaker," my friend's wife told me. "They say that after you hear him talk, you just wanna make out with him."

With those words ringing in my ears, I left for Plaza Inter, where the Venezuelan president gave a speech this afternoon as part of his tour of Central America.

In a way, she was right. Chávez is passionate, funny and convincing. I found myself laughing, nodding, hanging onto his every word — well, every word of the first hour or so — and even agreeing a few times when he said it's either socialism or death.

I did not, however, want to make out with him. The man wasn't quite that charming.

Chávez spoke for 2 hours and 25 minutes to a crowd of more than 1,000 Sandinista supporters about the Colombian FARC hostage situation, plans to help alleviate Nicaragua's energy crisis and baseball.

Like a good speaker, he warmed up the crowd by talking about something light: Nicaragua's favorite pastime. He summarized last night's baseball game between the Managua Bóers and Masaya San Fernando (Managua won, 4-2), talked about playing ball with his mentor and "father," Fidel Castro, then made an interesting suggestion:

  "It occurred to me last night that we should invent a baseball league for the countries in Alba — for Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. Not Bolivia, of course, because they don't play baseball; they play soccer."

He mentioned bringing in the Caribbean countries and creating a baseball training school, but quickly  the conversation turned serious. Chávez needed to respond to criticism from the Colombian government about his role as a mediator in the hostage situation. He scoffed at being called a terrorist or supporter of terrorism ("I don't agree with kidnappings ... I hope the FARC desist with that strategy"), as did a Washington Post editorial today.

"The Colombian government sends protest letters against Venezuela," Chávez said. "Let them send as many letters as they'd like, but we will continue to insist that peace needs to be reached in Colombia. It's enough of the war."

(For those of you who don't know much about the FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia), it might be worth your while to do some research on Plan Colombia, the United States' multi-billion dollar campaign to end cocaine production in that country, and the ongoing civil war there in order to understand the context.)

Chávez called Colombian President Alvaro Uribe a tool for U.S. imperialism, and that he "does whatever Bush tells him to do. That is the problem because Bush does not want peace; he wants war."

And, that, Chávez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega agreed, makes Bush the terrorist. It's convenient for the Bush administration that Colombia's state of civil war continue so that the U.S. military can maintain its military presence there and threaten Venezuela, he said.

On Nicaragua's never-ending energy crisis, Chávez announced a project to build two more generators of 60 megawatts each by March, adding to the two his country already built here. He spoke about plans to take advantage of Nicaragua's geothermal energy potential (thanks, volcanoes) and the progress of the $4.5 billion oil refinery being built near Léon.

"This investment is from Venezuela," Chávez said. "The only condition? That we create the grand country of Sandino." That's Augusto C. Sandino, the national hero who stood up to Yankee imperialism.

By this point in the afternoon, people were getting tired and hungry. Several hundred in the crowd were bussed in from across the country because of their membership in farming cooperatives or other campesino groups. You see the same sort of faces at these events: older, tired-looking men in FSLN caps and jeans, arms crossed, and listening quietly.

These guys didn't make it through. Something that has always struck me as awesome about events like today's is how accessible they are to people. Anybody could have walked into the room, stood back and listened. No tickets necessary. I guess this is what Daniel Ortega means by "el pueblo presidente."

One last thing: Chávez confirmed a new date for the next Alba summit, originally slated for this past December here in Managua. It's now to take place here on Jan. 25.  According to the Venezuelan leader, the new Alba bank will be officially created at this summit.

more on cpcs

Good investigative journalism by El Nuevo Diario regarding the government bean sales: Enabás supplies Citizen Power Councils. According to the government, the bean sales in poor neighborhoods are only organized by the CPCs; Enabás does the actual selling. This is interesting because the CPCs aren't an official part of government, and therefore shouldn't handle government money (a controversial topic that will become even more so tomorrow when the president goes through with his plan to legalize them by any means necessary).

What the reporters did was incredibly simple:

After on-site verifications by El Nuevo Diario yesterday in Managua's barrios, we discovered that the CPCs of the government's party handle the money from the bean sales ... changing the operation into one of political clientelism ...

This same trip demonstrated that what was said by First Lady Rosario Murillo wasn't true, and that the confusion of Enabás-CPC confirms the denunciation that was has happened is that the CPCs are a para-state organism — a very dangerous State-party mixup.

Reporters went to the bean sale sites and saw not a single Enabás employee.

For example, at the site in Batahola Norte, headed by Melba Fátima Urbina, the beans were being sold by her husband, Rodolfo Cuéndiz, who attended us cordially.

"Yesterday (Tuesday) we sold 8,000 pesos, of the 9,000 that we were supposed to turn in. Today (Wednesday) we turned in the 8,000 pesos that we sold, and they brought us 5 more quintales of red beans, and one of black beans. When they return we'll turn in what we've sold, and that's how we'll do it I guess until they tell us that it isn't necessary to go on with this," he explained. (END, my translation)

This kind of story really wouldn't be that big a deal for me in the States, but it's super reader-friendly, creative and good journalism. Things often missing in artices here. Kudos, END.

Speaking of good work, a friend alerted me to a strange story in the NYT yesterday, Fugitive From U.S.  Justice Leads Panama Assembly. This was his recommendation:

this is one of the most amazing stories i have read in a long time. can you imagine, they are trying to put this guy in jail from killing a soldier who was occupying his country?  whether he did it or not, how insane is it to consider defending your country the crime and conquering it the norm.  I mean, the USA does this all the time, but seldom this bluntly.  if they can arrest this guy, every american official should be arrested flat out.

And another NYT article sent by a friend, In Chávez Territory, Signs of Dissent. And another from Harper's Magazine, Roger Cohen: Viva Mubarak, Fuera Chávez!

Happy reading.

On rhetoric and action

I swear I'm not trying to make this blog all about Hugo Chávez, but here's the latest, from Reuters: Chávez Threatens to Reconsider Venezuela's Ties with Spain. The headline basically tells you what's up, and we'll just have to wait and see whether Venezuela's president actually does cut some ties with Spain or punish business interests there.

Venezuela's oil might gives Chávez the power to make that kind of decision, to risk losing substantial foreign investment. On the other hand, Nicaragua can't do really that because it lacks economic resources. It's one thing for President Daniel Ortega to use international podiums to lash out against Western imperialism, to choose diplomatic alliances with fellow champions of the poor who are unpopular with the rest of the world.  But it's quite something else for him to act on that.

For example, many here believed that Ortega's complaints at the summit about the Spanish company Unión Fenosa would be followed by strong demands that Fenosa reduce blackouts, or worse for the company.  Part of the context is that the president had announced a few weeks ago that outages would be greatly reduced this month and end by December 1 because of a substantial boost in the country's energy production.

However, as the front page of El Nuevo Diario tells us today, Neither blackouts or Unión Fenosa will go.

There are no guarantees that the energy sector will reduce or end the extensive blackouts before the first of December, as the government had promised and this Tuesday made clear that it never contemplated booting Unión Fenosa from the country and doesn't intend to do so.

During a speech ... President Daniel Ortega made clear that his government has never contemplated getting rid of Fenosa, only make it fulfill the investments it has programmed in its concessionary contract.

"It's not as simple as saying that Unión Fenosa should go. If that was the solution I would have done that a long time ago," Ortega said, justifying the declarations he made against the company at the Ibero-American Summit celebrated in Chile.

"We prefer that Unión Fenosa fulfills its obligations," manifested the president, signaling the existence of a valid contract with the company and, "unfortunately, dismantling that so the country can take it over takes time." (my translation)

My friend Tim Rogers recently had a story about Ortega's Two Faces of Economic Change in the Miami Herald that's worth checking out:

One day he is denouncing yanqui tyranny, and the next he is shaking hands with U.S. investors who are building a massive free-trade textile plant north of Managua. At one moment he preaches the importance of socialist revolution, yet behind the scenes his government is signing free-trade accords with Panama and Taiwan and negotiating with international lending institutions.

...

''The President of Nicaragua has the right to say what he wants, but he knows that he can't do everything he says,'' said (Humberto Arbulú, the International Monetary Fund's resident representative in Nicaragua). ``The private sector knows when the message is for them and when it's not. They heard [Ortega's] discourse in the plaza, but they also see the agreement with the IMF.''

That's it for now. A friend has been in town all this week so I've been slacking a bit on reading the news. Should be back on top of things next week. Up next is a trip to San Juán del Sur with some surf lessons, hopefully.

More on Chávez

We were having a few beers the other night with a couple of historians from the Canary Islands. They're  in Managua for the next few weeks on a sort of professor exchange with UNAN and giving a few lectures, including one later today about social exclusion in Europe at the Central Bank.

The conversation turned to the Chávez-King of Spain "incident" this weekend, and what the Venezuelan president gains from undiplomatic discourse. What I'm talking about isn't so much the content of Hugo Chávez criticism, because frankly we can all agree with him on a lot of points. It's the way he presents himself.

A Nicaraguan journalist who was with us pointed out what seemed the obvious context of the comments. In October, a Spanish man racially insulted and then physically attacked an Ecuadorean girl on a train. It was caught on security cameras and widely broadcast on television and the Internet.

The incident provoked an angry and resentful reaction in Latin America, he explained. While many people here still hold a historical grudge because of Spanish colonialisation, most people have gotten over it and warmly welcome Spanish/Europeans to their country. In Nicaragua, you meet a lot of Spanish tourists.

The resentment kicks in because people feel they don't discriminate against Spanish tourists, ex-pats living here, so they don't think it's right that they receive that treatment when they're in Spain. As I'd written a few days ago, Latin American immigration to Europe (Spain in particular) has increased in recent years.

This doesn't explain Chávez's comments, but it puts them in a different context.

In the end, it seems as if nobody really lost anything, one of the historians said. Chávez continues to appear as if he's standing up to power, for the poor and the defenseless. The King of Spain is a hero in his country for defending it. The current president might gain the support of some of his conservative opposition for defending his predecessor.

Thoughts?

If you're interested in further reading, here are a few articles that looked at his rhetoric in recent months. From ...

The Christian Science Monitor about a year ago: Chávez's anti-US Campaign

National Public Radio in late September: United Nations Provides a Platform for US Critics

BBC News: Chávez anti-US rhetoric draws crowds

I'm out in a bit for one of those lectures in Managua. In the meantime, looking for a good explanation for Chávez's big mouth from somebody who knows what they're talking about. Send links if you got 'em.

We will never shut up, much less to the voice of a monarch

(EFE)

Santiago was the place to be yesterday.

At the end of a three-day Ibero-American summit in Chile's capital, the heads of state of 22 countries signed a pledge to increase economic cooperation, fight hunger and poverty with policies that complement the  U.N. Millennium Goals, and help create decent and quality jobs in the informal sector. You can download the document here.

The accord will allow "nearly 6 million migrant workers in Latin America Spain and Portugal to transfer social security benefits between their nations," writes The Associated Press. Such an agreement recognizes that more Central and South Americans are choosing to migrate (legally or not) to Spain or Portugal instead of the United States, as a survey from the Inter-American Development Bank recently showed.

In the past, migrants from this region went almost exclusively to the United States. It now appears that measurable numbers of Central Americans are migrating to Europe, particularly Spain, and to Canada.

“We had already seen this same trend in South America. Now we are starting to find it in Central America,” said Sergio Bendixen, whose Miami-based polling firm conducted the surveys for the MIF. (The Miami Herald had a story about this here.)

But I kept running into walls as I searched for more information the immigration part of the summit's agreement (the documents aren't explicit). Instead, all the world appears to care about is that the king of Spain told Venezuela's president to shut up. To the right, for example, is the front page of Chile's main newspaper, El Mercurio.

Here's what basically happened: On Saturday, Chávez called Spain's former President José María Aznar (1996-2004, center-right party) a fascist for allegedly supporting the attempted coup d'état against the Venezuelan president in 2002.

Then, while he's talking, King Juan Carlos says, "Why don't you shut up?"

Minutes later, Nicaragua's own Danny Ortega is denouncing transnational companies from Spain — a criticism of the private company Unión Fenosa, which has a monopoly on Nicaragua's electricity and is rationing power because the country just doesn't have the capacity to generate enough to run 24-7.

During Ortega's talk, the king walks out of the room.

Later, Spain's current socialist President José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero asks Chávez to have respect for the legitimately elected ex-president, and asked for the establishment of a code of conduct for future summits.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and socialist is asking that the "incident" doesn't cloud some of the summit's achievements.

"The three times journalists asked her about the verbal encounter between Hugo Chávez and King Juan Carlos tried the patience of Bachelet, who after a half hour of declarations, asked her advisers not to accept more questions for the national and foreign press who wanted her reaction.

And though she didn't deny that the 'subject is interesting,' the president was clear in defending the summit: 'The truth is that if we stay with that summit, we're also losing perspective,' she said, adding that the meeting wasn't limited to 'shades and rhetoric,' but offered space to debate and reach concrete agreements. (El Mercurio, my translation)

And today, Chávez says he thinks the king of Spain was in on the attempted coup. In El Mercurio, he's quoted saying: "Mr. King, I tell you the following: We've been here for 500 years and we will never shut up, much less to the voice of a monarch."

As has happened in the past, nobody thinks the comments will affect diplomatic relationships.

I can't say that I'm surprised or annoyed that newspapers are making such a huge deal about this instead of what actually got or didn't get accomplished at the summit. After all, Chávez has an incredible record of publicly offending other heads of state, and his comments are usually funny and quotable.

But this speech in particular seems to have brought about a more critical reaction from around the world. Despite your/my personal politics, it's hard to figure out or sympathize with what Chávez intends to accomplish with discourse that is undiplomatic and juvenile.

The coverage is tremendous. It's the front-page story in newspapers across Latin America and in Europe.  In Nicaragua, La Prensa — always critical of Ortega's relationship with Chávez — exaggerates his part, or the importance of his part, in the mess, with Chávez and Ortega offend Spain.

But the best article I've looked at so far, from Venezuela's  El Nacional, analyzes how Spanish media has covered the situation. Understandably, it struck a chord in that country. (You only need to look at the comment section for an article in El País, where more than 1,500 people put in their two cents by the
next night.) Anyway, from El Nacional:

"The right-wing press was the most harsh against the Venezuelan president. 'The king put Chávez in his place in the name of the Spanish,' affirmed El Mundo, 'it's an act without precedents,' the daily added ...

 

The left-wing, and more prudent, press stressed the king's gesture. Juan Carlos 'was in his role,' as 'the Venezuelan president crossed with his disqualifications the line of tolerance in the relationship between sovereign countries, according to El País.

For the Catalonian daily El Periódico, the king's reaction 'perhaps wasn't adequate enough. But the monarch's words reflect to what point is it uncomfortable for the Spanish delegation the Venezuelan's diatribe.'" (my translation)

You can read stories by The AP, BBC News, and the Inter Press Service for more.

Anyway, it might be stupid of me to be spending time writing about this. I'm just adding to a lot of nothing. But here in Nicaragua, it's this sort of discussion, either by Chávez or our own Ortega, that really riles people. For some it's about speaking truth to power and finally having someone with the poor in mind. Others say it's all propaganda. I'll be writing more about this next week.

For now, I'm leaving you with some of that so-called propaganda. I see it every day when I go to Managua down Carretera Masaya.

En Argentina ...

Yesterday, Argentina's first lady was elected president.

(Andres Stapff/Reuters)

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, wife of current President Nestor Kirchner, won with some 45 percent of the vote, becoming the first woman to be elected president of the country. (Juan Perón's third wife and vice president, María Estela Martínez de Perón, took over after her husband died in 1974.) The next-strongest candidate was also a woman, Elisa Carrió, who captured about 23 percent.

Clarín, a centrist Buenos Aires daily, had a cool story describing how major media outlets outside Argentina covered the election. In pointing to a Spanish story, it reminded readers the positive fact that Argentina has celebrated its sixth presidential election since 1983, meaning the country has truly recuperated democracy after six decades barely legitimate governments and military dictatorships.

Jack Chang, of McClatchy News Service, writes: "If the first results hold, Fernández de Kirchner, a 54-year-old lawyer who has been in elected public office for nearly two decades, is expected to follow the center-left policies of her husband while inheriting tricky problems such as rising inflation and growing energy shortages."

The New York Times describes how "Despite approval ratings of more than 60 percent, Mr. Kirchner decided in July not to run for re-election, in what many analysts believe is a strategy to rotate the couple through the Pink House, the presidential palace here, for 12 years. Argentine election law allows a former president to run again after waiting four years on the sidelines."

The election results made the front pages of both major dailies here.

In other news, Nicaragua's leptospirosis epidemic has spread. (Check out La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario.) More than 1,500 people are showing symptoms, of which about three dozen have been confirmed to have the bacteria, and another nine people are dead.

(cutline) Mother believes young son is a victim of leptospirosis. (Róger Olivas/El Nuevo Diario)

Oh, and this side note in La Prensa's article made me laugh. Talk about finding and taking any opportunity to criticize a president you don't like.

Cataclysm
President Daniel Ortega described as a "cataclysm" the country's leptospirosis outbreak, which in one week has threatened residents in seven states. Since Ortega took over the presidency nine months ago, Nicaragua has suffered one hurricane, disastrous rains and now an epidemic.
(my translation)

Finally, some thoughtful commentary yesterday by Sarah Wilson in The Guardian (UK). Wilson works in Latin America and the Caribbean for Christian Aid, a religious organization that works to stop poverty "through providing emergency relief or long-term development." She writes about the relationship between policies imposed by international lending institutions and Nicaragua's energy crisis:

"As the debate rages over how we need to change to save the world from environmental catastrophe, the energy policies of the poorest developing countries have been largely ignored. In fact, it is in the least developed countries, which have the smallest carbon footprint, that some of the most appalling carbon-spewing projects are being initiated. Not by their governments themselves, but under policies which international organisations like the World Bank oblige them to adopt.

"It was in exchange for World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and debt relief that Nicaragua was obliged to privatise its electricity sector. Worst of all, the new system is reliant on oil-based electricity generation. This is not only absurdly environmentally unfriendly - when many alternatives exist - it is also exorbitantly expensive. Rising oil prices are a major factor in the spiralling bills for Nicaraguan consumers."

The comments below the story are even more educational to read, if you want to understand some sides of the debate about the role of institutions like the World Bank and IMF in development and poverty.

on Ortega's speech

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega spoke yesterday morning on the first day of the general debate of the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

It had been assumed here that he would ask the international community for monetary support in rebuilding what Hurricane Felix destroyed in the country's Automonous Region of the North Atlantic earlier this month. The Category 5 hurricane killed at least 100 people, wrecked more than 120,000 homes and swept through 477,000 acres of forest. Damages were estimated at some US$850 million.

Ortega did not talk about the hurricane, though. He used his opportunity at the international podium to attack the United States' history of imperialism and express support for Iran, North Korea and Cuba.

*You can check out the speech in English and Spanish here.

Nicaragua's main opposition paper La Prensa is absolutely denouncing Ortega — say he is not only incompetent, but willing to put politics before his own people. Even the paper that is more pro-Sandinista, El Nuevo Diario, is complaining.

Here's how some outside media covered the speech here.

Associated Press: Nicaraguan Leader Rails at U.S. Hegemony

Miami Herald: In U.N. talk, Ortega rips U.S. 'tyranny'

Reuters UK: Nicaragua leader slams U.S. in 1980s throwback

Meanwhile, the Tehran Times: Nicaraguan president hails Iranian relief aid

And the Cuban News Agency: Nicaragua Supports Cuban Position at UN General Assembly

It's interesting how different media can view the same story. Here in Nicaragua, it's hard to miss the political slant of newspapers, both in the word usage, story placement and general news coverage. It's a lot more in-your-face than in the States, and I kind of appreciate that. At least you know where people are coming from, no need to decipher subtleties.