Historic Miners' Strike is Rallying Point for Chilean Left

On the 40^th anniversary of Allende’s 1971 nationalization of the Chilean copper industry, workers at the state copper mining company Codelco (the largest producer of copper on the planet) have begun a historic general strike, their first in 20 years. According to Reuters and AFP, the first site to experience walkouts was Chuquicamata, the country’s number one producing copper mine, but roadblocks, demonstrations and sit-downs are planned at mines across the country. As  FT reports, the strikes have also been accompanied by heavy snowfall in some areas, grinding production at copper mines like Collahuasi, the world’s third-largest, to a screeching halt. Although the strikes are not expected to last more than 24 hours, the work stoppage is expected to cost the company more than $ 40 million.

Chile’s Federation of Copper Workers (Federacion de Trabajadores del Cobre – FTC), who represent 15,000 of Codelco’s 20,000 workers, called for the strike to draw attention to President Sebastian Piñera’s “modernization plan,” which they see as the first step towards Codelco’s privatization. The plan seeks to lay off about 2,600 miners, and has been framed by the government as necessary in order to compete with the private mining sector and increase production.

The strike comes as a hefty blow to President Piñera, whose approval rating has sunk to a record low. According to the latest Adimark poll, 60% of the country now disapproves of his administration. Over the past several weeks, Chile has also been wracked by protests from student groups and teachers’ unions, who say that the President’s education reforms will increase inequality in the country and have called for greater federal control over higher education, including increased access to scholarships for poor and middle income students.

Despite the fact that the president has proposed the creation of a $4 billion education fund, students have promised to continue their protests, including a walkout on July 14^th. As EFE reports, these groups have joined in solidarity with the workers under the banner of “the Movement for Democracy for Chile,” and have attacked Piñera for promoting a “crisis of legitimacy” in the country.  

News Briefs

·         Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa has followed up on his promise to hold a series of national dialogues over constitutional reform in the country, with the first one taking place this Saturday. In addition to the major political parties, the meeting was also attended by members of the Electoral Tribunal and seven new political parties in the process of formation (the Frente Ampio de Resistencia Popular, Frente Amplio Politico Electoral, the Partido Convergencia Nacional, the Partido Transformación de Honduras, the Movimiento Tendencia Revolucionaria, Nueva Democracia and Movimiento Anticorrupción). According to La Tribuna, those gathered discussed the provision of a state health care system, land reform, anti-corruption measures, prosecuting human rights violations relating to the coup and organizing a Constitutional Assembly.

·         Argentine protest singer Facundo Cabral was killed while on tour in Guatemala on Saturday, and the UN-led Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has promised to investigate the killing. According to AFP, the likely target of the attack was Nicaraguan businessman Henry Farina, who hired Cabral to perform in the country.

·          The Miami Herald takes a good look at the conflict in Venezuela’s El Rodeo I and II prisons, which has now entered its fourth week. Although the paper claims that the issue has been overlooked in the wake of Chavez’s cancer scare, AFP reports that the Venezuelan government claims it is making progress in its dialogue with the prisoners.

·         The mayoral race in Buenos Aires came to an end yesterday, with current mayor Mauricio Macri taking 47 percent of the vote, compared to the government-sponsored Daniel Filmus’ 28 percent, according to Argentina’s Clarin.  The Associated Press calls the race “a test of President Cristina Fernandez's re-election hopes,” although Mercopress notes that Fernandez has an 18 point lead over her rivals.

·         According to Mexico’s El Universal, 107 people were killed in drug-related violence throughout the country this weekend, including 20 people at a bar in Monterrey. As Bloomberg notes, this is the latest sign of the city’s decline from major business hub to cartel battleground. Furthermore, although the Mexican government has claimed that the notorious Familia Michoacana has been nearly exterminated, the L.A. Times says that more than 1800 troops have been sent to Michoacan to battle their successors, the Knights Templar. Despite the violence, the New York Times reports that firms continue to pop up along the border.

·         Obama administration officials unveiled an update to the border security plan last Thursday, the Houston Chronicle reports. The plan contains no new funding initiatives, but calls for increased coordination between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to combat smuggling.

·         Foreign Policy magazine highlights Cuba’s oil ambitions, with the country set to begin offshore oil drilling this fall. In response, anti-Castro hardliners in the U.S. congress have introduced several bills aiming to punish foreign oil firms seeking to drill in the country. As the Economist notes, the uncertainty of Chavez’s political future (and his generous provision of subsidized oil) makes oil drilling increasingly important for Cuba.

·         The Justice Department placing heightened scrutiny on human trafficking in Brazil, which now rivals Thailand as a major global hotspot for “sex tourism,” according to the New York Times.

·         The Economist reports on FARC resurgence in Colombia, where the group is stepping up the use of landmines and sniper attacks. Human Rights Watch has called for an investigation into recent FARC attacks, with spcial attention given to indigenous communities in the country. The newly created Latin America Comunique blog takes a look at recent guerrilla campaign in northeastern Cauca, an area that the government has declared is “totally under control.” As the disparity between the government’s rhetoric and the actual security situation in the country grows, the possibility for a negotiated end to the conflict is becoming increasingly distant.  

·         Colombia Reports says that a municipal election candidate was killed outside of Medellin last Friday, making him the ninth local candidate to have been killed since October. Meanwhile, an investigation by DAS, the Colombian intelligence agency, has revealed that 414 members of Colombia’s Liberal, Conservative, U and MIRA Movement parties have criminal records, according to Caracol.

·         The Washington Post conducted an interesting interview with Peruvian President-elect Ollanta Humala during his visit to Washington last week. Despite the paper’s best attempts to delve into his connections to Hugo Chavez and his plans for Peru’s mining industry, Humala remained conspicuously tight-lipped.

·         Environmental activism researcher Manuela Picq has written an insightful op-ed for Al Jazeera English, in which she discusses the criminalization of environmental activism in Ecuador. Apparently President Correa has used legislation dating back to the country’s era of military rule in order to suppress protests against development projects by indigenous activists.

Honduran Truth and Reconciliation Commission Releases its Final Report

After 14 months of investigation, the Honduran Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación - CVR) presented its final report in Tegucigalpa yesterday in a ceremony attended by OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza. While the report, entitled “So the Facts Will not Be Repeated,” offers several insights into the 2009 constitutional crisis, its most important finding was that the proceedings of June 28 did in fact constitute a coup d’état, making the government of Roberto Micheletti illegal by definition. According to a transcript of the report’s summary published in La Tribuna, the CVR also found that President Manuel Zelaya’s “letter of resignation” was a forgery, as he claimed, and held that the Honduran Congress has no power to remove a sitting head of state, much less to name his replacement.

However, the CVR placed at least partial blame for the crisis on Zelaya himself, saying that his attempts to hold a constitutional referendum amounted to an intrusion on the judicial and legislative branches of the Honduran government. Although the CVR found that the elections of 2009 were legitimate and constitutional, it characterized the events of that year as a broad failure on the part of political parties and civil society organizations to coordinate effective mediation of the conflict, due mostly to “their involvement and affiliation with the opposing actors.”

The report concludes with more than 80 recommendations to a diverse array of actors, divided into eight sections concerning the constitution, human rights, corruption, strengthening the democratic rule of law, electoral politics, international actors, the media, and remembrance.  

As El Heraldo notes, current President Porfirio Lobo has promised to comply with all of the the CVR’s recommendations, including the investigation of human rights abuses that occurred both during and after the crisis. The report found that 20 people had been killed in the repression following the coup, 12 of whom were killed by police and military forces "through disproportionate use of their firearms as well as toxic gases," and eight others who were apparently targeted by state agents or “other perpetrators apparently serving the state policy of repression. " Zelaya, for his part, applauded the Commission’s work but rejected any responsibility for the coup, telling AFP "I’ve never violated any laws in my life."

It should be noted, however, that despite the report’s aims to provide truth and reconciliation to the Honduran public, ten percent of the nearly 1,500 page long report was declared too sensitive to be released, and has apparently been sent to a secret archive in Canada, which is sure to fuel further speculation over external involvement in the coup.

News Briefs

·         Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denied widespread rumors yesterday that he was on the verge of rearranging his cabinet, emphasizing his support for all of his ministers including Vice President Elias Jaua, who some have said is becoming increasingly isolated from the Venezuelan leader. The Wall Street Journal says he also postponed retirement for some members of country’s military command. The move comes one day after El Mundo reported he would replace Jaua with Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro and Defense Minister Carlos Mata Figueroa with General-in-Chief Henry Rangel Silva. Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, Chavez is in the process of analyzing his inner circle in the hopes of picking a potential successor.

·         A Mexican judge has convicted four men in the notorious January 2010 “Villa Salvarcar massacre” that killed more than a dozen teenagers at a birthday party in Ciudad Juarez, AP reports. The article notes that that the trials were conducted orally, which is a relatively rare occurrence in Mexico’s rusty judicial system.

·         Just the Fact’s Adam Isaacson takes a look at the Mexican government’s overall strategy in conducting the war on drugs, especially regarding the Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Mexico’s most powerful and flashy criminal groups, respectively. While the government has repeatedly denied accusations that it favors the former, it seems that it is focusing efforts on the latter. InSight Crime’s Hannah Stone has more on the accusations of favoring the Sinaloans.

·         In the wake of two corruption scandals, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is facing an uphill battle within her ruling coalition. The LA Times reports on the implications that the resignation of Transportation Minister Alfredo Nascimento will have on her presidency.

·         The Guardian sheds light on the Brazilian government’s efforts to provide protection to at least 131 environmental activists, rural leaders and human rights defenders in the Amazon, in the wake of the recent assassinations in the region.

·         Former Brazilian presidential candidate Marina Silva has announced she’s leaving Brazil’s Green Party over complaints that the party has lost its “political vision.” Although she is expected to run for office again in 2014, AP says she gave no hint of that in yesterday’s announcement.

·         In a 5-to-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay the execution of a Mexican citizen sentenced to death in Texas, despite objections from the Obama administration, the New York Times reports.

·         Upon returning to Peru after a successful visit to Washington, Peruvian President-elect Ollanta Humala is facing questions about a trip his brother made to Russia, where he is suspected of negotiating a arrangements an investment deal relating to natural gas production, according to Peru21 and AFP.

·         Prensa Libre reports the daughter of Guatemalan election frontrunner Otto Perez Molina shot an armed municipal transit police officer, who remains in critical condition. Meanwhile, an appeals court has suspended the ruling which prevented Perez’s rival, Sandra Torres, from running, potentially breathing new life into her campaign.

·         Al Jazeera English  highlights recent developments made in prosecuting sexual violence perpetrated by the Argentine dictatorship.

·         The Senate Finance Committee voted on Thursday to approve a draft version of the Colombia FTA, a development which Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos approved, according to Colombia Reports. Meanwhile, 24 U.S. congressmen have signed a letter drafted by Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) calling for guarantees to both indigenous people and Afro-Colombians in the agreement. The letter, sent to President Obama yesterday, calls on Obama not tolerate “economic inequality or persistent violence against Afro-Colombians and indigenous people.”

Colombian Security: Rhetoric vs. Reality

As reported in Tuesday’s brief, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has announced that the FARC’s commander, Alfonso Cano, just barely escaped an air raid on his camp located in the south of the mountainous Tolima department last week.  Since then more details have emerged about the attack, which officials are claiming forced Cano to abandon his usually heavy security contingent. According to El Tiempo, the rebel leader is now on the run with only twelve men, with at least a thousand Colombian security forces hot on his heels. This has led President Santos to make some of his boldest statements yet concerning the guerrillas, saying "Sooner or later, Cano will fall -- just like all the other FARC leaders."

However, there is reason to view this announcement with skepticism. With nearly three quarters of Colombians believing that the security crisis in the country is getting worse, the government has found it increasingly difficult to sell its security policies to the Colombian public. According to Colombia Reports’ Gaary Leech, the military has stepped up its propaganda campaign against the FARC, making statements that come off as entirely illogical. This includes recent remarks made by Admiral Edgar Cely to El Tiempo, in which the armed forces commander dismissed a recent round of FARC attacks as consequences   The paper reported that there have been 142 “terrorist attacks” so far this year while there were a total of 144 in 2010.

Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera added to the official claim on Wednesday, claiming that these attacks are only acts of desperation.  Rivera said the FARC attacks, rather than a show of strength, should be seen as ndicators that the FARC are “Pablo Escobar-izing,” and becoming more involved in criminal activities.  

But this argument amounts to an attempt to sweep rising insecurity under the rug, and clashes harshly with the lived reality of Colombians. As El Espectador’s editorial board points out, the FARC conducted five major bombings on highways in the last two weeks of June, killing six police officers. While the incidents are a far cry from the assaults that the rebels carried out during their heyday in the 1990s, they demonstrate that the group still has capacity to carry out debilitating attacks security forces in the country.

According to a military report cited in El Espectador yesterday, the Colombian armed forces have killed 3,500 people engaged in criminal or rebel activity, 1,137 of which were FARC, ELN and EPA guerrilla fighters. Only 353 were members of the so-called BACRIMs (“bandas criminales”), the second generation paramilitary groups in the country that are believed to be the principal generators of violence.

News Briefs

·         The Wall Street Journal recently sat down with Santos, to discuss the Colombia’s new Victims’ Law, which aims to give $20,000 in restitution to victims of the war and has potential to return nearly 16 million acres of land to those displaced by the violence. Although the president expressed optimism about the new law, whether it can be fully implemented remains to be seen.

·         Despite widespread speculation that his agenda was too full to meet with Ollanta Humala, President Obama  made ​​a brief and unexpected visit  with the Peruvian president-elect during a meeting with meeting at the White House with National Security Adviser Tom Donilon. AFP says Peru’s Ambassador Luis Chuquihuara called it a surprising breach in protocol which demonstrates “high political courtesy,” as the U.S. does not usually meet with elected officials, but only sitting heads of state. As expected, Humala pledged cooperation on drug trafficking and regional security with U.S. officials, with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela saying that the White House is “very willing” to work with the incoming leader.

·         In an interview recorded by Mexico’s Ministry of Public Safety, the Zeta leader captured earlier this week -- Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar alias “El Mamito” – claimed that the group obtains much of their arms from the U.S., and said that their Gulf Cartel rivals bring them in freely. Borderland Beat has more on these allegations.

·         The Miami Herald offers a profile of the main opposition in Venezuela: Miranda governor Henrique Capriles Radonski and former Chacao mayor Leopoldo López . The article says the two are hoping for Chavez’s recovery in order to beat him in the 2012 elections, but the two will face an uphill battle against the Venezuelan president’s high popularity, which has been repeatedly placed around 50%. According to the polling firm Interlaces, Capriles currently has a 23 percent approval rating, followed by Lopez’s 14 percent. On top of this, Lopez is currently banned from office due to corruption charges, although he is challenging the development in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

·         Damien Cave of the New York Times published the first piece in a new series on immigration, entitled “Immigration Upended.” According to Cave, undocumented migration has reduced in recent years, due mostly to economic growth in the country. The Obama administration has also aided this process, granting nearly 250,000 H-2A agricultural guest worker visas from 2006 to  2010, which amounts to a 75% increase over the previous five years. The article also cites a drop in the number of illegal crossings in recent years, because of changes to the visa application process which now allow those who have been in the United States illegally to re-enter. In 2010, immigration records show that most of the 52,317 Mexican workers granted H-2A visas had previously crossed the border illegally.

·         NPR yesterday aired the first in a three part series on the trials that undocumented immigrants face in traveling northward. In 2010, hundreds of migrants went missing or were killed in Mexico, and more than 20,000 were kidnapped, according to the country’s Human Rights Commission.

·         The U.S. agreed Wednesday to end a two-year ban on Mexican trucks entering the U.S, in exchange for Mexico easing tariffs on a myriad of U.S. products, the Wall Street Journal reports.

·         Veteran Honduran journalist Adán Benítez was killed on July 4^th, making him the third journalist killed in in less than two months in the country, Honduras’ Prensa Grafica reports.

·         AP says that Brazilian Transportation Minister Alfredo Nascimento resigned yesterday, after four officials in his ministry were tied to a kickback scheme.

·         Argentine President Cristina Kirchner has banned classified newspaper ads by sex workers in the country, saying that the ads are degrading and encourage human trafficking. Although the Wall Street Journal claims that the move “takes a swipe” at media groups in the country, the ban is not likely to have a significant impact on revenue for newspapers, and is comparable to a recent ban in the U.S. on sex advertisements in Craigslist.

·         Elba Esther Gordillo, president of a major teachers’ union in Mexico –the largest union in the country—is now facing charges that she met with the former head of the Mexican social security agency to demand 20 million pesos  per month in order to finance the activities of her recently founded New Alliance Party.  According to the Miami Herald, the development has implications for the upcoming presidential elections in 2012, widely expected to go to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRI's national leader Humberto Moreira, has recently spoken of an alliance with Gordillo.  

·         Haitian President Michel Martelly named another appointment to Prime Minister yesterday before leaving on a three-day visit to Spain. Bernard Gousse, a former justice minister, has a controversial record in the country, and was accused of being unable to tackle organized crime and corruption in the country. Because his nomination is widely expected to be rejected, the Miami Herald reports that the move could be a tactic to re-appoint caretaker Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, who has been previously rejected by Haitian lawmakers. However, some in the country will open old wounds as Gousse was an ardent critic of ex-president Aristide , and imprisoned several of his supporters while in office.

·         An investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has found that, despite an improved record on freedom of the press in recent years, the Cuban government continues to persecute critical journalists. From March to April 2011, the CPJ found that journalists were targeted in more than 50 instances of arbitrary arrests, short-term detentions, beatings, smear campaigns, and surveillance.

Peru's Humala to Meet With Top U.S. Officials

 Peruvian President-elect Ollanta Humala arrived in Washignton, DC late last night for his first high level meetings with U.S. officials since last month’s elections.  According to various media sources, Humala is scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and will also meet with OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza.

Although Americas Quarterly claims there is a good chance that he will also meet with President Barack Obama “depending on his schedule,” WOLA’s Coletta Youngers told Peru’s El Comercio that he’ll likely meet with National Security advisor Tom Donilon instead.

At a press conference yesterday, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said officials will “welcome [Humala] gladly and we hope to continue strengthening our ties with Peru,” but would not confirm whether the president-elect will meet with President Barack Obama.

Humala’s U.S. trip is an interesting development for the leftist leader, and illustrates just how much Washington has shifted its view of him since 2006, when his U.S. visa was revoked over concerns that he was too close with Hugo Chavez and that he may have participated in his brother’s failed coup against then President Alejandro Toledo.

Perhaps predictably, the meeting between Secretary Clinton and Humala is likely to focus on economic relations and drug trafficking. Although he has stated his support for continuing Peru’s  free trade agreement with the U.S.,  the Peruvian leader is sure to find himself confronted with questions about his stated interest in raising royalties on foreign mining industries.

As Bloomberg notes, competition for Peru’s natural resources is heating up, and while the U.S. accounted for 16 percent of Peru’s exports and 19 percent of its imports in 2010, China overtook the U.S. as the biggest importer of Peruvian goods in the first five months of 2011. The UNODC’s 2011 World Drug Report, which characterized Peru as being on the verge of eclipsing Colombia as the world’s largest illicit coca producer, is another likely item of concern for U.S. authorities.

More on today’s meetings, and their significance to U.S.-Peru relations, in tomorrow’s brief.

News Briefs

·         Foreign Policy highlights a May 2011 study published by Mexico’s Citizens' Institute for the Study of Insecurity (ICESI) on the kidnapping epidemic in the country. According to the magazine, the country’s kidnapping rate is three times higher than Colombia's at its worst, making it the second-highest of any country in the world after Venezuela. Although President Calderon passed an anti-kidnapping law on June 30th which focuses on capacity-building and training investigators to better handle kidnapping cases, whether the government can fully implement the law in the country’s hardest hit regions remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Narco News reports on growing frustration within the country’s active anti-drug war movement with the administration’s treatment of the disappeared.

·         InSight reports on an investigation by Mexican daily La Reforma which claims that there have been 6,641 crime-related deaths in the first six months of the year, which is 16 percent higher than the same period the previous year. If this data is correct, the death toll in the country to around 40,000.

·         The L.A. Times recently published a profile of Mexico’s first female attorney general, Marisela Morales.  Although Morales has received high marks from U.S. officials on her desire to tackle the entrenched level of organized crime in the country, the paper says she is still struggling with an “enormous bureaucracy” in the judicial system.

·         El Universal says Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City’s PRD mayor, has placed the blame for his party’s losses at the polls this weekend on the failure to allying itself with the PAN.  Ebrard voiced his support for a proposal by Jesus Zambrano, the current leader of the PRD, to form a coalition government in 2012 in order to beat the PRI to the presidency.

·         Venezuela celebrated Independence Day yesterday with a massive military parade, showcasing a whole host of new military equipment which was mainly procured from Russia and China. A video of the new technology is available on Venezuelan state TV. Despite the display of unity, AP says Chavez’s absence revealed cracks in the armed forces between those who support Chavez's goal for socialist transformation and those who do not. With the president’s prognosis uncertain, these divisions are likely to become more and more pronounced.

·         The Miami Herald is the latest to speculate on what exactly Chavez’s health could mean for his Vice President, Elías Jaua. Although several analysts have said Jaua lacks the charisma and power to be an effective successor, he does seem to have the support of the young and more hardline members of the PSUV.

·         Venezuela’s El Universal reports that the National Guard has prevented Amnesty International’s Rosalia Materano and two pastors of the Latin American Organization for Human Rights from delivering fresh water to inmates at the El Rodeo II prison. The human rights defenders also sought to recover the body of Esteban Solórzano, a prisoner who has been dead for several days. According to officials, the three were denied due to safety concerns.

·         The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas reports that Brazilian blogger Antuérpio Pettersen Filho has recieved death threats after accusing a police official in Espírito Santo state of being part of militia.

·         On Thursday of this week, the US Congressional Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing entitled “Hezbollah in Latin America – Implications for U.S. Homeland Security.” Bloggings By Boz points out that while there can be no question the group operates in the hemisphere, the threat is likely to be sensationalized and over exaggerated.

·         In a July 4^th interview with El Tiempo, the commander of the Colombian armed forces denied that the security situation in the country is worsening, despite the fact that 74% of Colombians feel this is the case. The paper claims that there were 144 “terrorist attacks,” while there have been 142 so far this year.

·         The Guardian’s Poverty Matters Blog points out on an apparent contradiction between Evo Morales’ proclaimed support for environmentalist causes and his desire todevelop in the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS).

·         Guatemalan police have arrested Luis Marroquin of the Renewed Democratic Freedom party (LIDER), who was running for mayor in San Jose Pinula, a town outside Guatemala City. According to La Prensa Libre, Marroquin ordered the murder of two rival candidates, and then faked an attack on himself in order to appear innocent. Central American Politics has more on the incident, which illustrates the level of corruption in Guatemalan politics.

·         El Faro reports that the Supreme Court has now officially disbanded the two longest running parties in El Salvador, the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the National Conciliation Party (PCN).

·         AP says that the U.N.'s Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kyung-wha Kang, has called for the creation of a truth commission in Haiti in order to bring to light abuses committed under the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Although more than 20 lawsuits have been filed against Duvalier since his January return to Haiti, progress is slow due to the weak nature of Haiti’s justice system.

Chavez Returns to Venezuela

In a yet another surprise move, Hugo Chavez returned home to Venezuela early Monday morning, just in time to celebrate the country’s Independence Day on July 5^th. According to El Universal, Chavez’s return was marked by his signature political showmanship, with the president appearing slightly thinner but otherwise acting his usual energetic and fiery self. In an address that he delivered from the balcony of the presidential palace on Monday afternoon, Chavez told the Venezuelan people that he was starting a new battle for his life, saying, "We will win this battle, as well!”

While his return has finally silenced those of his critics who accused him of governing illegally while seeking treatment in Cuba, it also raises questions about the level of centralization of power in the Venezuelan government. As the New York Times notes, Vice President Elias Jaua himself seemed unprepared for the development, especially considering that on Friday he told supporters that Chavez could be out of the country for up to six months if necessary. In contrast, Adan Chavez’s June 22 announcement that his brother would return from Cuba in 10-12 days has proven to be spot on, lending credibility to reports that the governor of Barinas is more involved in the administration’s decision making apparatus than other, supposedly higher-ranking authorities.

Meanwhile, it seems that Noam Chomsky is the latest to express concerns about the sustainability of Chavez-centric politics in Venezuela. The MIT linguist, who has voiced extensive support for Chavez in the past, told The Guardian in a recent interview that he considers the level of executive power in the country to be excessive, and tantamount to an “assault” on democracy. He also called on the president to release Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni, who has been in jail since 2009 on corruption charges. After Chomsky complained to Venezuelananalysis.com that his comments were misconstrued for sensationalist purposes in the article, the Guardian published a full transcript of Chomsky’s interview, which in fact reveals a more nuanced critique of the Venezuelan leader.

News Briefs

·         Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Sunday that the FARC’s commander, Alfonso Cano, just barely escaped an air raid on his camp located in the south of the mountainous Tolima department, Bloomberg reports. According to the president, the military found cigarette butts of a brand thought to be favored by Cano all around the camp, as well as several dogs thought to belong to the guerrilla leader. According to Colombia Reports, some 6,000 members of the Colombian armed forces are continuing to search for him in the area.

·         A new Gallup poll has found that 76% of Colombians approve of Juan Manuel Santos, but 74% see the security situation in the country as deteriorating. El Espectador has the full results.

·         A key witness in Colombia’s "parapolitics" scandal was killed late last week. Luis Eduardo Gomez was killed shot dead by gunmen in his home in Antioquia. As the BBC reports, Gomez was the second witness killed last week, after the June 27 death of Jose Vicente Botero, a municipal official who was also set to testify at a hearing on connections between right-wing paramilitary groups and Colombian politicians.

·         On Monday Mexico announced the capture of a supposed Zetas founder, Jesús Enrique Rejon Aguilar, alias “El Mamito.” Officials have identified him as the Zetas’ third in command under the command of Heriberto Lazcano y Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, known to authorities as “El Lazca” and “Z-40,” respectively. Interestingly, because Rejon controlled the group’s activities in central Mexico, authorities also say he may have had a hand in the February killing of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. However, the exact nature of his participation in the shooting is unclear, as El Universal and the New York Times note.

·         As expected, Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won state elections in Nayarit, Coahuila and Mexico State, further cementing a probable PRI presidency in 2012, according to multiple analysts cited by the BBC and L.A. Times.  Time magazine has a profile of the 21^st century PRI, highlighting the supposed makeover of the party in recent years.  

·         AP says that five more deaths from Tropical Storm Arlene were confirmed in Mexico on Monday, bringing the total official death toll from the storm to 16.

·         On Saturday, Brazil’s President Rousseff ordered the country’s Minister of Transportation, Alfredo Nascimento, to suspend several of his top aides after reports surfaced that some of them were charging kickbacks on projects ran through the ministry. As MercoPress reports, this has potential to further sour the relationship between the administration and within the 10 parties that she relies on to pass legislation.

·         A recently released United States diplomatic cable obtained by Wikileaks reveals a clandestine agreement between the governments of Panaman and the U.S. which established procedures for the U.S. government to obtain the right to board Panamanian-flagged ships in international waters, noting that such activities happen regularly. As Latin America News Dispatch notes, this is intended to streamline counternarcotics operations, giving U.S. officials the authority to intercept drug lords, bringing them to Panama before being extradited to the U.S.  Because one-third of all the ships in the world are registered in Panama, this could have tremendous implications for international maritime law.

·         Peruvian-elect Ollanta Humala is scheduled to visit  Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, where he will seek to further relations with the United States, reports MercoPress. Humala’s planned trip to Venezuela was delayed Chavez’s health problems, and is still pending.

·         AFP reports that Argentina is backing the idea of creating an OPEC-like cartel for itself, Bolivia and Chile, which together control 85 percent of global lithium reserves. However, the level of investment and infratstructure to successfully create such an organism is currently lacking in the region.

·         WOLA’s Adam Isaacson defends former Guatemalan president Oscar Berger's decision to reduce the Guatemalan military from 50,000 to 17,000 in 2004. According to him, the lack of military presence is not the main reason that the country is ill-prepared to fight drug trafficking and organized crime. Instead, he places blame on the lack of an institutionalized police force to fill this gap.

·         Siglo XXI says that the Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal has upheld a lower electoral court’s decision to block UNE candidate Sandra Torres’s bid for presidency on the grounds that the Constitution expressly forbids spouses and relatives of heads of state to run for president.  Central American Politics offers a quality analysis of the decision, with a focus on what it means for her party and the long-term future of politics in the country.

·         Puerto Rico’s top police official, Jose Figueroa Sancha, stepped down on Saturday in response to rising criticism over the country’s rising homicide rate. According to AP, some 568 killings have been recorded so far this year, compared with 470 reported in the same period in 2010.

·         The Inter-American Dialogue has started a new blog on China-Latin America relations, ChinaAndLatinAmerica.com, currently featuring a piece which ties in recent analysis of Venezuelan politics by president Michael Shifter with a STRATFOR report on China's stake in maintaining strong ties with Chavez’s Venezuela.

Chavez Confirms Cancer Rumors

After almost three weeks of laying low in Cuba and avoiding the international media, Hugo Chavez officially confirmed rumors that he is battling cancer in a statement broadcast over Venezuelan television last night. Besides the operation to treat his “pelvic abscess,” the Bolivarian socialist revealed that he had undergone another, hitherto secret operation to remove a cancerous tumor. However, he claimed that doctors were successfully able to remove the tumor entirely and said he had faith that he would make a full recovery.

In his unusually brief 15-minute speech (the text and video of which are available at El Universal and TeleSur, respectively), the frail-looking Chavez came off as somewhat despondent, and compared his emotional state to his experience during the failed 2002 coup d’état against him. Like then, he claimed to feel like he was “at the bottom of another abyss” which threatened to swallow him up.

Chavez has reason to be troubled. While he recovers in Cuba, an armed standoff between prisoners and security forces continues to shake the country and power shortages have had a serious impact on the Venezuelan economy. More recently, 90% of the doctors working in state hospitals in the country have announced an indefinite strike to protest low wages, as El Universal reports.

Meanwhile, reports differ on what exactly this new development will mean for Chavez’s political future. Reuters suggests that an extended absence on his part could stir up infighting amongst the PSUV -- none of whom have anything close to Chavez's popularity -- and could potentially cause the opposition to press for an early election. However, AP says the opposition has been fairly respectful of Chavez’s condition thus far, and has not yet released an official reaction to the news.

Theoretically, if Chavez’s condition were to worsen to the point that he could no longer serve, then the president would be forced to abide by Venezuelan law regarding the selection of a successor. As Venezuelan blogger Juan Cristobal Nagel points out, the constitution requires him to put Vice President Elias Jaua in charge of filling out the rest of his term, which ends in January 2013. And while the Constitution allows Chavez to change vice president at will, he could not name his brother Adan Chavez to the post, as it expressly forbids the President from naming a relative as Vice President.

Ultimately, it seems likely that this announcement will at least be greeted with embarrassment on the part of officials, many of whom (like National Assembly leader Fernando Soto Rojas) expressly denied that Chavez had cancer in the past. Whether ordinary Venezuelans are going to be upset about this, or whether it will be overlooked may depend on just how much Chavez is able to milk public sympathy.

News Briefs

·         Although talks with the inmates of the El Rodeo I and II prisons have seemingly gone nowhere, it isn’t for lack of trying. The Guardian profiles the ex-gangster turned evangelical preacher who the government chose to work as mediator in the conflict. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government is reportedly investigating the news network Globovision for its coverage of the prison riots. According to Pedro Maldonado, director of the state telecommunications agency, Globovision transmitted “messages of panic” by suggesting that Venezuelan armed forces were massacring prisoners.  As such, Bloomberg says the network could be fined as much as 10% of their earnings on the coverage.

·         After the State Department released its annual “Trafficking in Persons” report this week, WOLA Senior Associate Adam Isaacson plotted out the report’s three-tier evaluation system on a highly informative map. In doing so, he highlights the potentially politicized nature of the report, pointing out that the only two countries which “are not fully complying with the minimum standards and not making significant efforts to do so” are Cuba and Venezuela, while the only other country in the hemisphere besides the U.S. and Canada to get “top marks” for its anti-human trafficking work is Colombia.

·         The Washington Post reports that the Colombia FTA hit another road bump yesterday when all eleven Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee boycotted a hearing in which the lawmakers were expected to reach an agreement on the bill.  Apparently the Republican Senators are still angry about the inclusion of trade adjustment assistance (TAA) for workers who lose jobs to the FTA. As Americas Quarterly’s Christopher Sabatini argues, however, the $1 billion pricetag for the TAA programs are little more than a drop in the bucket compared to the $13 billion in increased exports that the trade deal is expected to generate for the U.S. economy.

·         After all the negative press sparked by the ATF’s failed “Operation Fast and Furious,” two Congressional Democrats are attempting to take on the gun lobby and argue for tougher gun laws in the American Southwest. The L.A. Times has more on this long-shot effort.

·         Three Mexican states --Coahuila, Nayarit and Mexico State-- are hosting gubernatorial elections this Sunday. As EFE and The Economist report, each of them is expected to be won by Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidates. The L.A. Times has more on the Mexico State race, where the PRI candidate, Eruviel Avila is being accused of campaign-spending abuses.

·         Mexican officials have arrested an alleged member of the Zetas who has apparently confessed to having participated in several of the killings outside of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, where . This is the second arrest to be linked with the mass graves this week. As InSight Crime reports, testimony from the first capture seems to indicate that the victims were targeted by the Zetas as an act of retribution against the local wing of the Gulf Cartel.

·         Plaza Publica has written an interesting profile on Guatemala’s somewhat controversial but determined Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz. Since taking office, she has conducted the biggest purge of the country’s Ministerio Publico in recent history.

·         According to El Faro, El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes has outright accused previous governments in the country of sponsoring organized crime within the state security institutions. Speaking at a police academy graduation ceremony, Funes cited one instance in which Mexico’s Zetas tried to co-opt elements of an elite unit of police by allegedly offering them somewhere around $ 5,000 per month. He also claimed that the majority of homicides in the country are actually due to his government’s crackdowns on extortion, which he says has forced gangs to start fighting each other over drug trafficking territory.

·         The Economist blog says the Peruvian government’s cancellation of plans for a Canadian silver mine after recent protests in the southern Peruvian state of Puno “has thrown doubt over the future of extractive industries” in the country, potentially spooking investors.

·         Bolivia's government officially informed the United Nations that it is withdrawing from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (as amended by the 1972 Protocol) on Thursday. However, the country has announced it will rejoin the convention on January 1, 2012, which is the same day that the withdrawal would enter into effect. According to Bolivia’s Los Tiempos, the country’s UN ambassador explained it with the following analogy: "Bolivia isn't abandoning anything. It's a divorce to get remarried, without putting up with the mother-in-law."

·         Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research said on Thursday that nearly 268 square kilometers of protected rain forest were cut down illegally during May, up from 110 square kilometers during the same  month last year. Mercopress reports that the trend is increasing as farmers become more confident that the government will pass an  amnesty for illegal logging.

·         The U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico says authorities have broken up the island’s largest heroin distribution ring after a raid on a notorious slum.