South America

Rumsfeld on Chavez and Morales

Don Rumsfeld on Hugo Chavez today, via BBC:

"[Chavez] is a person who was elected legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally and then consolidated power,"  he said.

"Now [Chavez] is of course working closely with [Cuban President] Fidel Castro and [Bolivian President Evo] Morales and others.

"It concerns me."

Transparency is never lacking in the current US administration. On one hand, they promote democracy, and on the other they criticize it when it doesn't comport to their policy goals.

The Mothers are through

http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/01/26/um/m-01130827.htm

The mothers are hangin up their protest shoes in Argentina

Evo's next steps

Told ya so. Newsweek chimes in this week on Evo Morales, and his position between the rock and the hard place of his social dreams and economic realities in Bolivia. One thing they highlight, something that I've harped on for months now, is that the capitalist gas and oil contracts that Bolivia blockaded itself over are actually contracts with socialists neighbor, Brasil, one of the biggest investors in Bolivia. Here are some excerpts from the "real" news:

"Bolivia now supplies half of Brazil's natural gas. Brazilians, in turn, buy a third of Bolivian exports, pay a fifth of La Paz's taxes and process about 40 percent of its soybeans . . .

Total foreign investment in Bolivia plunged to just $62 million in the first half of 2005, down from a peak of $600 million in 1998. . .

many analysts believe that good sense will prevail, if for no other reason than that Morales has little choice. Unlike Chavez, who is swimming in oil, Morales still has most of his energy windfall buried underground. To get at it, "Bolivia needs foreign capital far more than the world needs Bolivia's gas," says Ricardo Amorim, Latin American analyst for WestLB Bank. That may not be the message that Bolivia's restive majority is eager to hear. But it is one that its new leader can ill afford to ignore."

Does this sounds familiar to you, too?

South America year end review

Here's some hits from the last few months:

Argentina is about to pay off it's "negotiated" debt to the IMf. Inflation is once again out of hand, fueled by insane amounts of exporting. President Kirchner fired his old economic advisor and replaced him with a crony. Still, if this were futbol, the score for the past few months would be Argentina 1, World financial institutions 0. Some of the money Argentina came up with to pay off the bad boys of capitalism came from Chavez at worse rates than the IMF loans, as if we even thought that was possible. This year we saw the return of Maradona, the man who can never wear out his welcome, as a TV host and a protest leader. The Argentina team is expected to make a strong showing in the world cup this year, and are my dark horse choice for taking the whole shebang. This should make millions of dejected Boca fans at least a little optimistic.

Bolivia elected Evo Morales their new president with more than 50% of the vote, an unprecedented amount. He then donned his goofiest looking sweatshirt, and took flights to meet Castro, Chavez, and the Spanish. As you already know, Bolivia is dead broke and depends on loans to stay afloat. Looks like Chavez may guarantee some loans and provide assistance to Bolivia in their upcoming attempt to pseudo-nationalize their nascent oil and gas industry. This manuever was the culmination of social actions, organizing, and a healthy dose of propoganda on the local level for at least the last few years. This year, it will be up to Morales to toe the line between civil war, nationalizing the gas, completely bankrupting his country, legalizing coca growing, and avoiding becoming a catalyst for war (the one thing that country needs the least) with lots of folks including the US, Spain (big investor), Chile, Brazil (the gas), etc, etc.

Fujimori,  criminally indicted ex-president of Peru, flew out of his safe-haven in Japan to Chile in an attempt to return to Peru to run for president once more. As explained by loyal blog-lover Kati, this makes no sense at all to people who don't live in Latin America. Of course, "El chino" was arrested, and is now sitting in prison in Chile, where Peru is desperately trying to convince their southerly neigbors to extradite him up there for a trial, instead of a presidential run. Insanely, Chile most likely won't send Fujimori to Peru because of a 100 year dispute about a sea border between the two countries that flared up again last year. Ah, South America, where sometimes its hard to tell the difference between your president and a serious felon (then again, our US president might set the same standard someday).

Colombia is still cleaning up the mess from the ongoing civil war. The government is in a no-win situation, attempting to grant clemency to organized killing squads in return for peace. Human rights groups don't like this peace idea (ironically enough) because it allows the squads to 'get away with murder.' The government of Uribe is banking on some semblance of success with this program during their bid for re-election. Tensions remain high with neighbor Venezuela, partly because of Chavez's rhetoric, partly because of porous borders that are somehow less controlled on the Venezuelan side allowing arms and drug trafficking. Stats show that more drugs are moving up north  physically by way of Chavez-ville each year.

Brasil is a monster. They paid off their outstanding debts. Their economy is surging. As long as Lula can keep a lid on his own scandals, he will continue to preside over the most succesful capitalist growth on the continent, all while masquerading as a populist leader. It's like having the best of both worlds in Latin America, which we all know can't last all too long . . . Oh, Brasil is favored to win the world cup once again.

Chile, despised by its neighbors as "US-junior," is about to elect a woman as its president. Pinochet remains on constant trial, delaying and sidestepping convictions seemingly until he finally keels over. Pollution levels are unfortunately threatening the seafood industry.

Ecuador's half-cocked former president fled an angry mob, and the rest of the country, by way of helicopter earlier this year. He has so far avoided prosecution, but his calls for returning to power have been seriously lampooned. The new President has so far attempted to re-negotiate the oil contracts.

So, what are the upcoming issues this year? Same as always! They are:

• Oil
• Leftist politics
• Drugs
• The World Cup

The man to watch is clearly Chavez. He's like Castro with a bankroll. He thinks he's the second coming of Bolivar. He's already censored the press, essentially fired congress and replaced them with his lackies, is about to rewrite the constitution, and is making deals for arms with bad actors like Iran and North Korea. He's done everything but picked a fight with the US. However, he's not so bold as to forget that a good portion of his wallet depends on Citgo's US sales, and the other US companies working out of Caracas. It should be interesting to see how far he'll take his rhetoric this year, and what the US and Latin reaction will be. It should also be interesting to see if his populist policies actually end up benefitting the people as hoped, or are simply a masquerade to allow him to assume absolute power over Venezuela (Castro, anyone?).

Chavez hits home - offers oil to Chicago's CTA system

Ozzie Guillen is Venezuelan. He is also the coach of the World Series Champion Chicago White Sox, and a local hero here in Chicago. That is about the only tie between Chicago, a heavily puerto rican, dominican, and Mexican hispanic town, and Venezuela. Yet, for some unknown and inexplicable political reason, Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez is all of a sudden mildly obsessed with reaching out to the poor of Chicago.

The CTA is the public transportation system in Chicago. They are cash-strapped because of rising fuel costs. Citgo, the state-owned Venezuelan gas company, apparently offered the CTA discounted diesel gas with the stipulation that CTA should offer it discounted to the poor. The Trib surprisingly picked up the story today, explaining that the CTA has no way to distinguish between the economic level of riders (probably true), and that the type of diesel offered was not useful for CTA vehicles (arguably true). Here's todays comeback from the CTA:

The Chicago Transit Authority's president dismissed Citgo Petroleum Corp.'s offer to provide discounted diesel fuel for its buses and instead called on the Venezuelan-owned company Wednesday to buy at least $15 million in fare cards for the poor if it wants to help provide low-cost transit.

"AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAHA," is my official comment on this counter-offer. Pretty unlikely. However, it highlights a decent point - are we really talking about 'helping the poor to which we owe a debt as a profitable corporation,' or are we talking about making a political statement towards the Bush administration? All signs lead to the latter, which is still ok as long as it benefits the poor. However, Chavez proponents should recognize that this offer in reality is far less of an abstract, lofty ideal.

The reality of the situation is that Chavez is just as crafty of a political technician as Bush, yet in his own blunt way. Chavezs wants the world to see him helping the poor, especially the poor in the US, and gas is his tool to accomplish this goal. The CTA president has a good point, however, in that if Chavez really wanted to help the poor of Chicago, he could simply calculate the amount of money Citgo would have lost on his 'gas gift,' and instead spend that amount on farecards given directly to the poor. Even better, he could give those crafty new electronic CTA-Cards, so that the poor folks of Chicago can stop paying in cash, get free transfers, and keep costs low for the CTA system so that we don't see more fare-hikes in the future.

But the nitty-gritty of actually helping the poor is not what Chavez seems to be interested in here. Chavez wants the press spotlight for his gas-gift, Bush doesn't want to give it to him, and the CTA is caught in the middle of this charade while they actually provide reaonably priced busses and trains to living, breathing people. Ironically, it looks like Chavez will be the winner from this fiasco, whatever the outcome, because it is gaining some steam in the press, and may even make national news. This may also highlight another disturbing point, that our president's reach of disturbing influence (remember the spying on Americans bit from last week?) reaches all the way to some guy with a hat who runs the Chicago transport system. It's frightening. Essentially, at the table about this gas gift was less a consulate member and a transport head, and more Presidents Chavez and Bush.

Even if this deal gets done, the likelhood of this kind of gift actually helping the poor in the long run is slim. Needless to say, a gift to community organizations who actually have hte skills to address the most pressing needs of the poor would be preferable. Unfortunately, it looks as though this gift is only negotiable on the Citgo side.

This story highlights the real truth behind the good and bad of left and right. At the end of the day, both emporers have no clothes, but its the rest of us that are all left naked.

EVO

Congrats to Evo, new president of Bolivia (so it seems, at least).

I've been pretty hard on him in this blog, but that's just cause I want progressives to, if just once,  "get it right." Hopefully, Evo will do the right thing for the good folks of Bolivia. We shall see.

one bonus of finals -

There is a bright side to finals:

No music, thus no Xmas music. It's the simple pleasures that make life worth living  . . .

Giant Condom takes Buenos Aires

Respect goes out to Argentina, who covered one of their most famous national symbols in a pink condom today for World Aids Day. Once again, Buenos Aires is too hip for you squares . . . (picture borrowed from Cnn.com).

I can't stop laughing looking at this. I think it's great.

Bullet Points from the Blog for the kids!

"Hi!  I am a Spanish teacher and I was doing some research to explain the economic crisis to my students and I found your blog.  It was really helpful not only with my own understanding, but I was able to put together a brief summary to get across the points that I need to my kids.    Thanks so much! 

-April"

Awesome. If anybody else out there finds any of this blog helpful (or dreadfully incorrect!), especially leading up to the mess that will be Bolivia's December elections, by all means let me know!

 

1 year anniversary

wow.

The one-year anniversary of my leaving this god-foresaken country and heading to god-foresaken South America is coming up this weekend. In its honor, I promise to foresake god once again, only this time in Chicago.